Merry Christmas to JOGO Sanitation from the American taxpayers and the people of the CNMI. The Torres administration awarded the company $257,477 to do less than 48 hours of work in 17 days. Fifteen of those occurred between December 1 and 27, 2021.
This is according to the latest group of invoices Congressman Ed Propst uncovered. All of it was for services rendered and cleaning products used at the Department of Corrections alone.
It is unclear where else and how much more JOGO has made throughout the CNMI government. And aside from a January 10, 2022 invoice, it is unclear how much more work JOGO has done for DOC.
JOGO Sanitation is owned by Jesseleo T. Ogo, who has close ties with the Torres administration. He opened his sanitation company only last year. And in one day alone , his company made more than the entire annual salary of a CNMI legislator by cleaning the prison at Susupe. That happened on December 4, 2021, when four JOGO Sanitation employees sanitized the prison between 11:30 p.m. and 1:20 a.m. Mr. Ogo charged the government $31,567. That is the equivalent of paying each of those workers $4,312.43 an hour. It is, by far, the most lucrative business in the Mariana Islands.
Two days before Christmas, JOGO spent five hours cleaning the prison facility and charged it $38,129.20.
Dan Anderson, whose licensed and certified company uses a product that, when sprayed, will kill coronavirus for 3o days, said he would have charged about $3,000 for one application a month to sanitize the Multi Purpose Center. He told Kandit in an exclusive interview that he personally spoke with Homeland Security and prison officials to offer his services.
“They knew about my product and my company,” Mr. Anderson said. “I sat down with and spoke to Georgia Cabrera at DOC and gave her my packet.”
JOGO was procured by DOC using a sole source exemption method. In order for DOC commissioner Wally Villagomez to have certified the sole source exemption, he must have verified that no other contractor was ready and willing to provide services.
