THE Palacios-Apatang administration’s sub-committee tasked to oversee the transition at Commonwealth Ports Authority has responded to CPA Executive Director Christopher Tenorio’s claim that the transition report on CPA was “fraught with factual inaccuracies.”
In a statement on Friday, the CPA transition subcommittee headed by Teresita B. Camacho said their preliminary report relied on the documents provided by CPA officials so those “inaccuracies” would have been “precipitated” by CPA officials themselves and not by the transition team volunteers “who merely served as messengers tasked to independently assess the autonomous agency’s chronic, systemic deficiencies and ongoing crisis under the current board leadership.”
Besides Camacho, the other members of the CPA transition team were Juan N. Babauta, Rudy Babauta, Bruce Jorgensen, Frances Mafnas, Cody Norita and Leo Tudela.
According to the transition team, there was a “significant number of facts that CPA officials withheld, kept secret and hidden and flatly refused to provide.”
They also alleged that the CPA board did not want the transition team to independently seek information from the Federal Aviation Administration.
CPA wanted the transition team to rely solely on CPA officials’ words, the transition team said.
This “hostility” struck the transition team members “as absurdly preposterous.”
The team said the CPA board’s secrecy disregarded CNMI and federal laws, while the silence of the board chair “indicates willful assent or mutual complicity to suppress access to CPA public records.”
Deficiencies
According to the transition team, “even casual CNMI observers have made the following observations at CNMI airports and seaports, noting a multitude of longstanding deficiencies commonly known to residents and visitors, for many years. The following are longstanding and worsening deficiencies according to the transition team:
“1) Unsanitary porta-potty setup over four years on the sidewalk at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport.
“2) The squalid ‘temporary’ commuter terminal.
“3) The report control tower inoperable for more than four years.
“4) The lack of security for air traffic control personnel.
“5) The rapidly deteriorating runways at Saipan airport.”
The transition team also noted the lack of precision approach path lights on Runway 7; the lack of a runway beacon light at Tinian airport; the lack of a functional runway, apron, identifier and precision approach path lights at the Tinian airport; the lack of an instrument landing system and runway distance marker lights at the Tinian airport; the lack of taxiway lights and runway lights at the Rota airport; and an insufficient setup for Customs and Border Protection at the Rota airport.
Monopoly
The transition team stated that shipping a laden cargo container from Oakland or Long Beach to Guam seems to cost less than shipping the same container from Guam to Rota.
The answer, the transition team said, “lies squarely with the exclusive monopoly CPA has conferred repeatedly, since 1986, on a business entity reputedly controlled by a former CPA board member; and, the cost is borne by Rota’s residents in the form of exorbitant consumer pricing for everything from lumber, cement, and steel, to rice, Spam, and healthcare products.”
The transition team said the CPA board has not taken steps to remedy this situation.
Objective
The team said its members “had no adversarial or biased agenda in submitting the preliminary report.” They “merely sought to obtain information and documents deemed necessary to objectively and independently assess” CPA’s operations, management, administration, and fiscal/regulatory affairs.
“Objectivity on the part of the CPA transition team members was paramount — they served purely as volunteers, with at least four putting their retirement on the back burner to fulfill their commitments to CNMI public service. Their activities, tasks, assessments, and findings were completed months ago, and their appointments as transition team members have lapsed,” the transition team said.
The CPA transition team members “have yet to see or have access to the final version of the CPA transition report, which, some have indicated, may have been forwarded to the Office of the Attorney General and/or the Office of the Public Auditor.”
“Since CPA officials provided the facts, details, and information set forth in that preliminary report, and purposely withheld pertinent CPA records and information sought by transition team members, any lamenting on the part of CPA board members is misdirected if aimed at transition team members — or, perhaps, derives from feigned umbrage or indignation on the part of some board members, which is just the latest in their litany of ‘buzz words,’ ‘media sound bites,’ ‘talking points,’ and self-laudatory pronouncements, over the past four years. The CPA transition report submitted — in preliminary form — speaks for itself,” the transition team said.
