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IPI pays vendors with uncontested payable accounts
Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC has already paid all private vendors that have uncontested payable accounts, according to finance director Frances Mafnas.
In response to a question raised at a recent Commonwealth Casino Commission board meeting, Mafnas said IPI has paid all vendors with uncontested payable accounts in compliance with CCC’s order last Jan. 30.
Mafnas had first asked for an executive session to answer the question, which had been raised by then-CCC commissioner Joe Reyes and then-CCC executive director Edward Deleon Guerrero, but CCC chair Juan Sablan insisted that financial matters may now be discussed publicly, unlike before. Mafnas then stated that IPI did comply with the CCC order to settle the uncontested payable accounts. Only the claims of former contractors Pacific Rim Land Development LLC and U.S.A. Fanter Corp. have not been paid because of their pending lawsuits against IPI in federal court.
Deleon Guerrero then asked IPI to provide CCC with a complete list of the uncontested payable accounts. “Thank you for paying the vendors,” Deleon Guerrero told IPI officers.
The total amount paid to IPI’s vendors was not disclosed at the meeting.
At the Jan. 30, 2020, CCC board meeting, CCC ordered IPI to settle in full within 30 days from that day any uncontested account payable with a licensed vendor or private entity that were 90 days or more due. Sablan and other commissioners adopted the order despite some vendors saying in an earlier meeting that the draft of the order had no teeth, considering it does not mention any penalty against IPI.
CCC adopted the order after many vendors publicly complained at meetings with the commission that they have not received any payment from IPI.
Last Dec. 19, representatives of many vendors and former IPI contractors appealed to CCC to take action against IPI, whom they accused of engaging in a pattern and practice of breaching contracts and dishonoring obligations to licensed professionals in the CNMI. The vendors were allegedly collectively owed $35 million.
