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CPA countersues Telesource over airport project
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Posted on Dec 29 2004
The Commonwealth Ports Authority accused the contractor in the multi-million-dollar West Tinian airport improvement project of breaching its contract, asking the court to award it monetary damages.
The CPA and its executive director Carlos H. Salas filed with the Superior Court a counterclaim against Telesource CNMI Inc., which earlier sued the authority to stop the latter’s spending of over $1.77 million in retained fund for the project.
The retained fund represents about 10 percent of the total amount paid to Telesource in connection with the project, which covered the construction of an 8,600-linear foot asphalt concrete runway, the conversion of the 6,000-linear foot runway into a parallel taxiway, and the construction of related crossover, parallel and partial taxiways at the Tinian airport.
The constructed facility has been in use for more than a year and a half, according to Telesource’s lawyer, Sean Frink, and the company has been claiming the retained fund after completion of the project.
Besides CPA’s refusal to release the retained fund to Telesource, the authority’s solicitation of services for a “complete as-built survey” of the airport, which was estimated to cost some $186,000, prompted the company to file the lawsuit.
CPA, however, accused Telesource of breaching their contract by failing to maintain as-built drawings. CPA’s lawyer, Douglas Cushnie, said Telesource failed to turn over to CPA the as-built drawings as required by the contract.
