THE Office of the Attorney General “is unable to process” the complaint of Aqua Resort Club against the Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games over unpaid hotel meals and accommodation bills.
The NMPMG was the local organizer of the regional competition that the CNMI hosted from June 17 to 25, 2022.
Aqua Resort Club was among the hotels on Saipan that accommodated some of the over 13,000 visiting athletes and 100 officials from 20 Pacific islands and jurisdictions.
The NMPMG made initial payments for meals and accommodations, but it still has an outstanding balance of $22,455, according to the complaint that the hotel’s acting general manager, Sachiko Gerrard, submitted to the OAG on Aug. 14, 2024.
She said Aqua Resort sent the invoice for the remaining balance to NMPMG Chief Executive Officer Ben Babauta on Sept. 7, 2022 but “no response was received.”
Variety was unable to get a comment from Babauta.
Aqua Resort tried to contact then-Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig on Oct. 31, 2022, “but to no avail.” Even when they sent a demand letter to Finance through attorney Michael Dotts on July 12, 2023, “no response was received,” Gerrard said.
On June 5, 2024, she reached out to Finance Secretary Tracy B. Norita, asking for payment. She also asked Gov. Arnold I. Palacios on July 3, 2024 if it’s possible to offset the unpaid hotel bills against any tax due for payment, such as the business gross revenue tax, the bar tax or any sort of tax that Aqua Resort should pay the government until the amount of the arrears due to the hotel is zeroed out.
But the Finance secretary, in her response to Gerrard, said, “The transactions in question were between Aqua and [NM]PMG, which was not and never has been an agency or instrumentality of the CNMI government.”
Since the CNMI government is not a party to the transaction between Aqua and NMPMG, Norita said the CNMI government “is not liable for any balances owed by” NMPMG.
In his letter to Gerrard on Sept. 5, 2024, OAG Chief Solicitor J. Robert Glass Jr. said the CNMI Consumer Protection Act “is designed primarily to protect and safeguard individual consumers rather than business.” He said the CNMI Consumer Protection Act “is inapplicable in your case because Aqua Resort Club is not a consumer but rather a provider of goods and services.”
While the OAG sometimes brings lawsuits to enforce consumer protection law and public interest, Glass told Gerrard that “we cannot provide you with legal advice or act as your attorney in this matter.”
He said the hotel’s general manager should contact a private attorney.
