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CPA board to review Saipan airport concession deal
Lt. Gov. Jude U. Hofschneider administered the oath of office yesterday to Barrie Toves, who is serving his third term as a member of the Commonwealth Ports Authority board of directors. Toves said that among the issues he will be involved in is the review of the existing Saipan airport master concession agreement with Duty Free Shoppers and protecting passengers’ interests amid rampant delays and cancellations of Cape Air/United Airlines flights to and from the CNMI.
Toves, who represents Rota on the CPA board, was initially appointed to finish the remaining term of a former board member in 2008. He was reappointed to serve his first full four-year term in 2010 and that expired on May 13 this year. He got reappointed to his second full term.
The Rota CPA board member said CPA’s master concession agreement with DFS is expiring in November 2015.
He was previously part of an ad hoc committee that was looking into that airport concession agreement. Now that he is back on the CPA board, he said he will work on this “unfinished business.”
Toves said among the considerations now is whether CPA will negotiate only with DFS for the airport concession, or should CPA issue a request for proposal so that other investors’ offers can also be considered. He said CPA is also open to unsolicited proposals.
He said the original concession agreement was “watered down” to a point wherein DFS retained only the shopping or merchandise portion and let go of the rest. Moreover, the original deal, he said, covered not only the Saipan airport but also Rota and Tinian airports. But he said the Rota and Tinian concession deals did not materialize.
