by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - The Government of Guam's official online payment system is still down. As we reported early last month, GuamPay.com has been offline since November 30. When the government awarded the merchant services contract for the credit card system last month, they had to terminate the existing contract with the former vendor, who offered a bundle service for credit card and the point of sale system.

Department of Administration director Benita Manglona says it's resulted in residents waiting in long lines to pay their bills, telling KUAM News, "I know it's an inconvenience for the taxpayers, but we hope that once we have the system back online that we should be able to offer a more wider services and it will be better in the long run for the tax payers and the government."

The new vendor will help the government save more than $5,000,000 a year in bank fees. The system is expected to be back online by the end of the month. Officials meanwhile are looking to ease long lines by having taxpayers make payments over the phone and extending hours of operations.