DPL is ugly to Marianas Resort

A lot of readers may not know it but our priest has asked me to speak out more on the lack of ethics among our leaders so critics—shut up in my class! I know Pete is doing what he thinks is best for the CNMI, but he is doing it the wrong way. Pete is my friend and I supported him politically and even helped him with his bid for the U.S. delegate seat so this not about anything but what is ethical for Marianas Resort, not Pete. I am not writing to put him down but to ask him and the governor to reconsider their plan as Pete made a slight “ethical” mistake in requesting for bids.

Marianas Resort is not the new kid on the block to be shooed away for someone else we don’t even know—these investors are our friends and co-pioneers of our Commonwealth who helped to start our tourist industry. So why are we throwing them in a barrel with other investors we don’t know, especially when it is their buildings we are taking to give to the highest bidder. I think even a first grader can tell that something is very wrong or should I say “unethical.”

It is just like I have been saying for years, the CNMI is developing and fluid so we must learn how to break paradigms (think outside the box) to improve and progress but in a fair and equitable manner. Pete is right that Marianas Resort should be competitive in retaining their lease but he is dead wrong about them competing with others when they have already won the lease. Pete is stuck in the “old school” approach of only competitive bidding like this is a new project but it is not new—it is an ongoing project that Marianas Resort started and should have the right to continue. What DPL should do is open the bidding up and make a selection but allow Marianas Resort to “counter or match” the chosen bid which is what we used to call fair but now we have gotten educated we call it being ethical. Be fair to Marianas Resort as we the people owe them that much for the millions they have brought us as they have rightfully earned first option rights to salvage their investment before we go giving their investment away. I don’t know what their lawyers were thinking when they signed the contract—it seems they could have used me. But try walking in the resort’s shoes on this one and you will see how bad it feels for someone to take your investment away and force you to bid against mystery investors and numbers.

I had always wondered about this kind of scenario and now I see what the government will do to investors—screw them for true! The government wants investors to be “loyal” to the CNMI but the government is not “loyal” to them and this is ugly and will surely give us a bad name among investors who want to lease lands from the government in the future. Pete is caught up in the here and now but needs to think about the past and the future on this one. Anyway, I can only pray for Marianas Resort owners that Pete and the governor will listen to the true wisdom I just shared and change the bidding process based on ethical standards. What I have just proposed is fair to the new bidders and they must bid higher under these conditions with a counter proposal on the table which actually increases the potential earnings for the CNMI in the bidding process—so being ethical actually pays and it certainly restores “confidence” in our government for present investors who are depending on future lease agreements. Let us have an ethical government that investors can trust to treat them with the highest ethical standards.

Ambrose M. Bennett
Kagman