{"id":8186,"date":"2020-07-16T21:45:58","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T21:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=8186"},"modified":"2026-04-24T03:35:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:35:22","slug":"senate-to-review-saipan-casino-fee-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/senate-to-review-saipan-casino-fee-collection","title":{"rendered":"Senate to review Saipan casino fee collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US$15 million from the casino licence fee is split between three islands but one has not been receiving its share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Northern Mariana Islands.- Senator Paul Manglona has raised questions in the Sentate over the share of Saipan casino licence fee owed to the island of Rota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US$15 million from Imperial Pacific International\u2019s (IPI) licence fee for its casino on Saipan is supposed to be shared between three island delegations, with Saipan itself receiving US$11 million and the islands of Tinian and Rota  receiving US$2 million each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Senator Manglona says the Northern Mariana Islands&#8217; finance secretary has yet to remit Rota&#8217;s share of the casino license fees from prior years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US$331,709 owed are supposed to be destined to inter-island medical referral assistance in the Rota delegation. The senator says the local government has been trying to resolve the issue for over a year without any success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Senate President Victor Hocog, who is from Rota, said he also wants to find out the cause of the delay and senators have agreed to meet with the Finance secretary to discuss the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Facing <strong><em><a aria-label=\"undefined (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/imperial-pacific-fire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">several legal battles<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, IPI has been trying to reduce its licence fee in Saipan by 50 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US$15 million from the casino licence fee is split between three islands but one has not been receiving its share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Senator Paul Manglona has raised concerns regarding the non-remittance of Rota's allocated share of the Imperial Pacific International (IPI) casino license fee in the Northern Mariana Islands. Despite the US$15 million fee being designated for distribution among Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, the finance secretary has reportedly withheld Rota's US$331,709 portion from prior years, intended for medical referral assistance. This issue highlights potential governance framework deficiencies in the distribution of gaming-related revenues.","focusai_entities":"Paul Manglona, Imperial Pacific International (IPI), Victor Hocog","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Rota, Saipan, Tinian","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.8), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.7), investor_analyst (0.8), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on IPI's License?","query":"What are the potential implications for Imperial Pacific International's operational license and regulatory standing given the ongoing dispute over fee distribution and their efforts to reduce the license fee?"},{"label":"Governance Framework Review?","query":"What specific deficiencies in the Northern Mariana Islands' governance frameworks or financial oversight mechanisms allowed for the non-remittance of mandated casino license fees to Rota?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439,158],"tags":[29,4024],"class_list":["post-8186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","category-slider-home","tag-casino","tag-saipan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8186"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8205,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8186\/revisions\/8205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}