Kazuo Okada’s troubles in the Philippines aren’t going away anytime soon after moving back the first phase launch of Manila Bay Resorts a year later than planned.
The decision didn’t sit well with PAGCOR, which is now threatening to impose penalties on Okada’s Tiger Resorts Leisure and Entertainment, the local affiliate of Universal Entertainment, if it fails to abide by its own project implementation plan.
“Based on the [plan], they are supposed to finish it by March [2015],” PAGCOR Chairman Cristino Naguiat Jr. told local reporters. Naguiat also indicated that Tiger Resorts would lose its Php100 million guarantee that all casino operators maintain with PAGCOR on top of other measures the regulator may impose.
“The lawyers are looking into it,” he added.
This episode is the latest in a long list of problems Okada and Tiger Resorts have gotten themselves in since announcing plans to build an integrated resort and casino in the Philippines. Okada still has bribery charges to address and Tiger has yet to find a local partner in the country that abides by constitutional laws prohibiting foreign companies from owning more than 40 percent of land in the Philippines.
Tiger has yet to explain its reasons for the project’s delay.
Meanwhile, PAGCOR’s remittance to the Philippine government posted a double-digit growth in August this year, according to data released by the Philippines’ Bureau of Treasury.
During the month, the government’s share from PAGCOR’s revenues amounted to Php1.21 billion, 22.5% more than it remitted to state coffers in the same time a year ago. From January to August, PAGCOR’s overall remittance also saw steady gains, increasing 3.4% to Php9.29 billion over the eight-month period.
