Senate Vice President Jude U. Hofschneider and Sen. Frank Q. Cruz expressed disappointment yesterday over Neo Gold Wings Paradise failure to pay the $211,000 in land lease arrears that the company promised to remit three months ago.
“I am very disappointed,” said Hofschneider, who added that he has been monitoring the progress of Neo Gold Wings Paradise’s lease agreement with the Department of Public Lands.
He said it is unfortunate it has to come to the point that DPL has to discontinue the land lease deal.
He noted that it was a very ambitious project presented to the CNMI government in 2008, but the supposed big investors could only pay only a very small portion of their arrears.
Neo Gold Wings Paradise was given until Sept. 30 to pay the $211,000 but was only able to remit $5,000, prompting the DPL to terminate again the lease deal. It first terminated the agreement five months ago.
Hofschneider, R-Tinian, said Neo Gold Wings Paradise had been given more than ample time to recover and make good with its lease payments.
“I remember back in 2008 when we approved this — it was very ambitious, the supposed billion dollar project that later became $3 billion but unfortunately it did not materialize,” he said.
But because there are many other interested investors, Hofschneider said Neo Gold Wings Paradise’s failure to keep its word is not really a loss to the CNMI.
He said it’s the company that lost such a good opportunity as “we were very generous in terms of the timeframe we gave them.”
He said the lesson they have learned is that if there’s any investor who wants to come in next time, “we should ask them to be mindful with what we are going through here, and don’t let them promise what they can’t deliver.”
Sen. Frank Q. Cruz, R-Tinian, said he was also very surprised that the company could not even pay the land lease.
“We have met this group and was given the assurance that this company is for real. And they have expressed their willingness to invest here and they would not give up on that,” he recalled.
Yet “they can only pay $5,000 lease for a $3 billion project?” he asked.
DPL Secretary Oscar M. Babauta in a separate interview said he already had very strong reservations back then, when the Neo Gold Wings Paradise first presented its proposal.
The land lease, he said, had been terminated already but when the group came back again last May, “I was astonished to hear that they were willing to increase [the investment] from $1.5 billion to $3 billion.”
In a meeting with CNMI officials last May, the executives of Neo Gold Wings Paradise brought many people they introduced as their business partners.
Babauta said “they gave us hope they had the financial capability to move on.”
“But apparently that did not happen,” he added.
The way he looks at it, Babauta said the supposed investors are selling the project to various financial institutions in China, the U.S. and the U.K.
Tinian Mayor Ramon M. Dela Cruz disclosed in a separate interview that he has been meeting with new investors, including those from Shanghai, China who run six-star hotels there.
He said he urged the officials of the Shanghai-based One Home Holdings to build a hotel with a golf course on Tinian. The company, he said, has expressed interest.
There is another investor from Beijing interested in building a golf course on Tinian, Dela Cruz added.
“Earlier this year, I have received criticisms for traveling to China. Now, these are the fruits of those trips,” he said.
