IMPERIAL Pacific International’s construction team leader, Jesse Aquiningoc, has turned down IPI’s request to continue working for the casino investor without pay.
In an interview on Monday, Aquiningoc said he had formally turned in his resignation and informed IPI’s major shareholder and former chair Cui Lijie that IPI still owes him his salary for 52 hours of work, and around $4,000 in paid time off that had accumulated in the past two years.
He said Cui asked him not to go.
“I said, no,” said Aquiningoc who led a team of construction workers tasked to remove the remaining tower cranes still on top of IPI’s unfinished casino-hotel building in Garapan.
He said he is owed one pay period, he said, but 14 other construction workers, and the rest of IPI’s remaining workers, including 17 security guards and eight administrative staff, have not been paid in three payroll periods.
Aquiningoc said Cui told him to stay because his team was needed to move huge construction equipment from one warehouse to another in Tanapag.
He said IPI was being evicted from one of the warehouses in Tanapag due to unpaid rent.
“But how can we continue to work if they don’t pay us?” he asked. None of his team members can report to work because they don’t have money for gas, he added.
Aquiningoc said what truly concerns him are the two tower cranes that now pose a serious danger to the community if they are not removed as soon as possible.
Aquiningoc said he would leave for Guam on Monday but he will be back on Saipan to attend the Commonwealth Casino Commission hearing on IPI’s license revocation on May 24, 2022. He said he will testify against IPI.
IPI management said it is waiting for the U.S. Department of Labor to release the $250,000 security deposit so it can pay IPI’s employees and remove the tower cranes.
A tower crane is seen on top of the unfinished Imperial Pacific International casino hotel in Garapan on Monday.
