by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - "It's unfortunate that this has come to this point," stated Data Management Resources chief operations officer Gina Taitano, referring to documents filed by the Attorney General's Office with the Office of Public Accountability regarding the procurement challenge that arose from the point of sale request for proposal.

She added, "What is happening and what's come out of it, there is a settlement that has been in good faith that's been negotiated between the government and DMR; however you have these separate allegations coming out from the Attorney General's Office."

AG's spokesperson Carlina Charfaurous would not provide additional comment on the matter, telling KUAM News that the documents speak for themselves.

DMR had been the only vendor providing the financial data services to the Government of Guam for years and was the only company to respond to the point of sale RFP. Taitano says DMR's bid of $1.8 million was rejected because the government didn't anticipate it would cost so much. GovGuam had only set aside 350 thousand dollars and attempted to cancel the RFP.

DMR appealed and the parties engaged in negotiations, which resulted in the company bringing down their bid by $500,000. The AG's Office apparently did not like the terms of the proposed settlement claiming that DMR was responsible for the intentional disruption of government data services earlier this year and deactivating financial information.

Taitano says it's a curious statement and warrants explanation. She said, "First of all, DMR has never intentionally disrupted any government services however we have of course abided by the directives of the Government of Guam. Now, back in November 2011 the Government of Guam - the Department of Administration - directed us to terminate merchant services otherwise known as credit card processing."

She adds this is tied into the POS system that many people may be familiar with when paying your taxes or paying your car registration online. Other allegations that were lodged include the government discovering a highspeed, short haul fiber optic cable had been installed and connected, giving DMR unrestricted and uncontrolled access to procurement, payroll, human resources, account and financial data.

Taitano says contrary to those allegations, it was an authorized connection and allows DMR to provide the service as a contractor of GovGuam. "Now, to say we have unrestricted access is really to say that you don't' understand how back-end systems or the AS/400 works," she claimed. "Of course, there are built-in safeguards in place and auditing procedures. The government wouldn't have it's system if those aren't in place, so that's totally, totally untrue."

As for what's next, Taitano says DMR has a good faith settlement in place and is waiting review for legality and format with the AG's Office. "Now, we stand by our products, we stand by our service and we stand by the integrity of our company, so we would never do anything to compromise our client or Government of Guam."