No Change in Governor’s Plans to Hire Montenegro as Consultant

adolfo

The governor is not changing his mind about hiring Aoee Adolfo Montenegro as a consultant to ASG on telecommunications despite the lawsuit against Montenegro by his former employer BlueSky Communications.

Montenego and a business he headed, ACMA Management Consultant Inc, are named as defendants in a suit filed last Thursday in the High Court by American Samoa Telecom LLC,  doing business as BlueSky, accusing Montenegro and ACMA of enriching themselves with BlueSky’s assets and funds and claiming that Montenegro tried to disrupt the sale of BlueSky to Amalgamated Telecom Holdings of Fiji.

Yesterday, the defendants sued Amper, the parent company of BlueSky, Amper’s CEO Jamie Espinosa and BlueSky Communications for $20 million for alleged fraud, bad faith, breach of contract, and other misconduct.

The governor said there’s no change in plans to hire Montenegro as an advisor to ASG.

He told KHJ News anyone can sue, but Montenegro has already been advising the government on telecommunications matters.

He added that when Montenegro returns from off island they would sit down together with the Acting Director/CEO of ASTCA, Puleleiite Tufele Lia Jr., to go over what needs to be done to improve ASTCA.

The governor told KHJ News last week that Montenegro would be offered a contract.

It’s not known at this stage whether ASG would retain Montenegro ‘s services as an individual or that of his consulting firm.

In related news, Puleleiite was introduced at a cabinet meeting this morning at the Department of Agriculture.

Puleleiite,  a member of the House of Representatives is also chairman of the ASTCA Board.

He replaces former Director of ASTCA, Alex Sene Sr who has been moved to Director of Technical Services.

Governor Lolo told KHJ News yesterday it’s necessary to have someone from the outside review the situation at ASTCA, where he said  “many discrepancies” have been discovered.

He said it was pointless to appoint someone from within ASTCA to carry out this review because they were there all this time and didn’t see what was wrong.

The governor said that ASTCA is not doing well.

At today’s cabinet meeting, Puleleiite briefly discussed ASTCA’s immediate plans which include improving internet service and extending ASTCA cell phone service to villages in the eastern and western tips of Tutuila, that are not connected now.

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