IMPERIAL Pacific International on Friday said a third-party civil engineering firm had completed its assessment of the fair value of services that USA Fanter Corp. Ltd. rendered to IPI for the construction of its casino-hotel in Garapan.
USA Fanter is IPI’s former sub-contractor that performed construction work for the casino investor. This included a work contract which is the subject of an ongoing litigation, and involved the completion of IPI’s hotel landscapes as well as perimeter wall, ramps, and steps.
IPI is currently defending itself in federal court from USA Fanter’s allegations of non-payment of its services.
IPI said it has consulted a civil engineering firm based in Los Angeles and requested the firm to conduct a third-party professional assessment on the work performed by USA Fanter for IPI.
IPI said “the third-party civil engineering firm has completed the assessment report based on the practice of the industry, the relevant code, regulations, standards, and market rates. The firm has assessed the fair value for services rendered by USA Fanter through observation and to the as-built conditions, relevant work records and documents.”
IPI said the third-party engineer came up with the following assessment:
• For overall backfill, USA Fanter reported 11,353.59 cubic yards but the third-party assessment identified only 3,716.96 cubic yards.
• For overall rebars applied, USA Fanter reported 232.75 tons but the third-party assessment identified only 81.129 tons.
• For overall concrete at 4,000 pounds per square inch or psi applied, USA Fanter reported 2,106.86 cubic yards, but the third-party assessment identified only 215.91 cubic yards.
• IPI said the rebars were labeled $2,280 per ton by USA Fanter, but the market rates were $1,780 per ton according to the third-party assessment.
• For concrete at 4000 psi, USA Fanter labeled $280 per cubic yard, but the market rate was $195 per cubic yard, according to the third-party assessment.
• For form work, USA Fanter’s unit cost was labeled $138.40 per square meter but the market rate was $22.10 per square meter, according to the third party assessment.
IPI said USA Fanter demanded $2.7 million for these jobs but the third-party assessment found that USA Fanter’s completed work was valued at $454,433 only.
“Beyond the significant differences in the figures provided by third-party estimators compared with the billing from USA Fanter, major discrepancies also existed in the following ways: USA Fanter’s invoice reported works that were never performed, and had repetitively charged IPI for the same item. For example USA Fanter listed ‘concrete’ which was the product of rebar and cement. Rebar and cement were then listed again as separate items and billed for,” IPI stated.
Also, IPI said it hired the security staff for the job site. However, IPI added, it was shown in numerous invoices from USA Fanter that it also billed IPI for security staff as part the subcontractor’s service fees.
According to IPI, USA Fanter asserted that its billing was accepted and certified by “Harry Wong from IPI.”
However, IPI said this individual did not have the authority or authorization from IPI to certify any billings by contractors.
Furthermore, Harry Wong only acknowledged receipt of the billings, but in no way did he certify the validity and acceptance of the billing, IPI added.
IPI said the L.A.-based engineering firm is working on a second assessment report regarding USA Fanter’s performance under another contract which involved work performed by USA Fanter for portions of the casino hotel’s forecourt.
