BOS sought $1.5M BOOST grant

This screengrab from a video of Monday’s joint meeting shows Bank of Saipan president Arroyo testifying before the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee and Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee regarding the Torres administration’s BOOST Program. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

Bank of Saipan, the same bank chosen by the Office of the Governor to administer the Torres administration’s Building Optimism, Opportunity and Stability Together, or BOOST Program, reportedly applied for $1.5 million in grant funds and received the largest award thus far.

Bank of Saipan president and CEO John Arroyo confirmed for members of a CNMI House of Representatives joint committee yesterday that BOS did apply for a BOOST grant award in the amount of $1.5 million.

However, the bank was only awarded a little over 30% of their request, or $500,000. The Bank of Saipan, Arroyo said, received the largest award under the BOOST program thus far.

Arroyo, who later conceded that the Bank of Saipan shouldn’t have applied for the grant to begin with, said that he prepared the application packet but it was signed and submitted by BOS finance manager Arnold Pascua last August.

Bank of Saipan’s application was later reviewed by BOOST panel member William “Wil” Castro, chief of staff of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres.

Although Arroyo did not disclose when Bank of Saipan was awarded their BOOST grant, he did confirm that two separate checks worth $250,000 were awarded to BOS on two separate occasions.

“I wasn’t even expecting the second award, I was just surprised we got it,” he said.

Arroyo also disclosed that, aside from the Bank of Saipan itself, multiple other bank employees applied for BOOST grants and have since been awarded.

At the committee meeting, Rep. Christina Sablan (D-Saipan), who is a member of one of the committees looking into the BOOST matter, raised concerns about a conflict of interest, asking Arroyo, who also administers the BOOST program, if he didn’t think to run a conflict-of-interest inquiry by anyone.

“I thought we would rely on the members of the panel to decide whether a conflict of interest existed. I believe the panel would be the stop gap but I suppose, in hindsight, we never should have submitted the application,” Arroyo said.

Arroyo added that he didn’t believe a conflict of interest existed with BOS applying for a BOOST grant since he doesn’t have the authority to decided who is awarded a grant.

“Because we weren’t making the decision on who to award grants to, I thought we would be treated as a small business in the community. It would go through the panel, like everyone else, and they would make the decision on whether we were eligible and whether they would give us funds or not. Mostly my job was to make sure applications were complete, not necessarily reading through the applications. There is no written conflict of interest policy in place for BOOST,” he said.

“My thinking is that because the panel knew that the application was coming from the Bank of Saipan, they would do the final vetting of the application to make sure that what we submitted was complete and correct,” Arroyo added.

The joint meeting is being conducted by the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee.

Castro, is the meeting’s first witness, testified about the BOOST Program in the House chamber Friday and finished his testimony on Monday.