Finance chair calls for Tiyan casino audit
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.9999990463257px; line-height: 13.7999992370605px;">Vice Speaker BJ Cruz who is also the Chairperson on the Committee on Finance and Taxation has sent a letter to Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks requesting her office conduct a “comprehensive financial and compliance audit of gambling operations presently executed by the Mayors Council of Guam and its associates.”</span>
November 26, 2014Updated: November 26, 2014
By KUAM News
By KUAM News by Sabrina Salas Matanane
Guam - Vice Speaker BJ Cruz who is also the Chairperson on the Committee on Finance and Taxation has sent a letter to Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks requesting her office conduct a “comprehensive financial and compliance audit of gambling operations presently executed by the Mayors Council of Guam and its associates.”
Although the island's liberation celebrations are over, the MCOG has been allowing the Guam Historical Liberation Society to continue to conduct gambling activities in the casino facility at the liberation carnival grounds in Tiyan. The MCOG maintains villages that have been using the facility received authorizations from the Governor's office to conduct games of chance in Tiyan as part of their village fiesta celebrations. The Governor's office however maintains they did receive authorizations but not for gaming in Tiyan but within their municipalities. While the matter is currently under investigation by the Department of Revenue and Taxation and the Office of the Attorney General, Vice Speaker Cruz would also like some answers.
“Despite the repeated and outright rejection of casino gambling by the people of Guam at the voting booth, the law continues to authorize “games of chance” as permitted by the governor of Guam. Though these gambling activities must be expressly connected to Liberation Day festivities or to fiesta celebrations of the island's various villages, recent years have seen the expansion of these permitted activities in Tiyan—a consolidated location that has hosted a full casino operation—for nearly half of the year. While my opposition to casino gambling is well established, I cannot be ignorant of the present state of the law or the potential for millions of dollars in gaming revenue to change hands without appropriate taxation or oversight. In speaking with a number of constituents intimately familiar with the manner in which these gaming operations are procured, my concern regarding this matter continues to grow,” he wrote in his letter to the Public Auditor.
Guam - Vice Speaker BJ Cruz who is also the Chairperson on the Committee on Finance and Taxation has sent a letter to Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks requesting her office conduct a “comprehensive financial and compliance audit of gambling operations presently executed by the Mayors Council of Guam and its associates.”
Although the island's liberation celebrations are over, the MCOG has been allowing the Guam Historical Liberation Society to continue to conduct gambling activities in the casino facility at the liberation carnival grounds in Tiyan. The MCOG maintains villages that have been using the facility received authorizations from the Governor's office to conduct games of chance in Tiyan as part of their village fiesta celebrations. The Governor's office however maintains they did receive authorizations but not for gaming in Tiyan but within their municipalities. While the matter is currently under investigation by the Department of Revenue and Taxation and the Office of the Attorney General, Vice Speaker Cruz would also like some answers.
“Despite the repeated and outright rejection of casino gambling by the people of Guam at the voting booth, the law continues to authorize “games of chance” as permitted by the governor of Guam. Though these gambling activities must be expressly connected to Liberation Day festivities or to fiesta celebrations of the island's various villages, recent years have seen the expansion of these permitted activities in Tiyan—a consolidated location that has hosted a full casino operation—for nearly half of the year. While my opposition to casino gambling is well established, I cannot be ignorant of the present state of the law or the potential for millions of dollars in gaming revenue to change hands without appropriate taxation or oversight. In speaking with a number of constituents intimately familiar with the manner in which these gaming operations are procured, my concern regarding this matter continues to grow,” he wrote in his letter to the Public Auditor.