“As governor it is my responsibility to support an economy that is competitive and ultimately gives the best service to our people,” Camacho said, dismissing GTA’s claim that he endorsed IT&E’s request for federal aid because the company currently employs his brother, Carlos Camacho.
“Accusations that I as a governor showed one company favoritism because a family member of mine is employed there is absolutely false and offensive,” the governor said in an e-mail to Variety.
He went on to explain that Guam is a competitive market where each service provider can compete for money provided by the federal government.
He said GTA president Don Moffat and vice president Dan Tydingco should be fired by the board for not taking advantage of the grant opportunities offered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in March.
Camacho said as governor he will support any effort to secure federal funding and that IT&E was the only company that took him up on his offer to write a letter of support.
IT&E was awarded the $8 million broadband grant on April 1 by the NTIA. The telecommunications company is currently pursuing an additional $89.6 million in stimulus funding.
Tydingco said the governor should have refrained from getting involved in the grant application to avoid any question of a potential conflict of interest.
Politicized
In response to Tydingco’s allegations, Carlos Camacho issued a press statement, saying GTA’s attempts to politicize the grant process are based on the company’s failure to secure federal dollars.
“It seems most ironic to us that GTA is now crying ‘political foul’ when they failed to submit a strong round one proposal and did not even bother to submit a round two proposal,” Carlos Camacho said in the press statement.
He said GTA is trying to politicize the grant process and confuse the round one and round two proposals.
Letters
According to a timeline supplied by IT&E officials of the federal grant process, the governor wrote his letter of endorsement on March 25, almost a week after the first round of the grant process was closed.
Carlos Camacho said the governor never specifically endorsed the round one application of IT&E because the letter to NTIA in October of last year was written by Guam Economic Development Authority administrator Anthony Blaz.
Governor Camacho confirmed that he did not write any letters of recommendations for any company competing for the $8 million during round one of the grant process.
Only after it was made publicly known that he would submit letters of recommendation to any company interested in securing funding during the second round did the governor respond to IT&E’s request.
