By Moneth G. Deposa
Variety News Staff

THE former Criminal Justice Planning Agency executive director and now the Commonwealth Ports Authority’s top official, Clyde K. Norita, is defending the absence of bidding on a project for which he awarded a contract when he was still with CJPA.
The $375,000 contract awarded to Resources Management International Corp. in September last year was for the renovation of the Rota and Tinian detention facilities.
“CJPA had been sitting on the federal grant for many years,” Norita said. “It was awarded in 2001 and we were given an extension to expend it — or until 2005. If we did not use the grant before Sept. 30 last year, we would have lost the grant money and we didn’t want that to happen,” Norita said in an interview Friday.
He added, “I don’t like losing money because it shows bad administration. I was appointed to the CJPA position in June and I believed that was a the right thing to do to keep the project moving.”
Resources Management is owned by Jack Manglona.
Norita said the evaluation and assessment of the company’s background was performed by the procurement office in consultation with the Department of Public Works, which provided the designs for the project.
Norita said although there was an effort to seek another extension for the three-year grant, “I went ahead with the awarding of the project.”
“I didn’t have second thoughts about what I did,” he said. “We saved money and it was the right thing to do…I am convinced that I violated no rules…or any federal standards on this project,” he said, adding that the transaction was “legitimate” and not a “sweetheart deal.”
Manglona’s company, according to Norita, is “almost done with the work on Rota and Tinian.”