CCC warns it will close by end of April 2022
A day after asking the government for a US$1m, the Commonwealth Casino Commission warns it will have to cease operations by April 2022 if it doesn’t get funds.
Northern Mariana Islands.- Andrew Yeom, the CCC’s executive director, has said that if the government doesn’t approve the allocation of the available US$1m in casino licence fees collected from IPI in 2019, the regulator will have to shut down.
Yeom said: “The casino commission cannot continue to operate at its current funding level. If additional funding is not made available to the commission soon, it will be forced to close its operations by the end of April 2022.”
According to Marianas Variety, both Yeom and commission chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero have said the CCC could receive additional funding through resolutions and/or settlements of ongoing litigations but that government’s assistance was very much needed.
In June, the regulator announced 20 layoffs without cause to reduce operation costs. Yeom said this represented a 60 per cent workforce reduction for CCC as some staff had already voluntarily resigned. He says the commission currently has 15 workers, down from 50 in 2019.
