IMPERIAL Pacific International has paid the delayed salaries of its active employees, Commonwealth Casino Commission Executive Director Andrew Yeom said on Wednesday.
During the commission’s regular meeting, Yeom said it was his “pleasure to report” that the issue with IPI’s delayed payroll has been resolved “at the moment.”
He said IPI finance director Frances Mafnas has informed him that all eight outstanding payrolls from October to December 2020, as well as the four payrolls for this year have been disbursed.
Yeom said the payments, however, did not include those of the staff who have been terminated, as this issue is still being addressed in court separately. The commission is tracking the progress of the case, he added.
Rep. Edwin Propst, who chairs the House Gaming Committee, told the commissioners that IPI has not yet paid its former employees who have already left the island.
He said it is “very unfortunate that we have a lot of former workers who have been terminated that continue to wait for their unpaid salaries.”
He noted that members of the community have been hearing from the federal court about the unpaid salaries of IPI employees.
“But what the community and the commission may not be hearing about are the workers who have left the island without the money owed to them,” he said.
He added that IPI “also made an attempt to make these workers sign a paper asking them to forgo all their future claims.”
Fortunately, he said, the federal court declared those waivers null and void.
Propst said he finds it “appalling” that a casino operator that created a “Corporate Social Responsibility” team “would do something like that.”
Commission Chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero said IPI will be held accountable.
“I cannot see how the commission will allow IPI to reopen the casino without resolving all the outstanding obligations, including paying the people who are no longer here in the Commonwealth,” Deleon Guerrero said, adding that the commission will proceed with the administrative hearings that will start Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, on the five complaints against IPI regarding its unpaid obligations.
Commonwealth Casino Commission Executive Director Andrew Yeom, 2nd left, reads his report to the commissioners during a meeting on Wednesday.
Photo by Emmanuel T. Erediano
