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Senate OKs bid process for CUC privatization
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Posted on Jul 27 2008
The Senate on Friday passed a bill requiring the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to privatize its power system through a bidding process.
The bill cleared the upper house by a unanimous vote. It goes back to the House of Representatives for approval of a minor amendment made by the Senate.
Senate President Pete P. Reyes said he hopes the bill’s passage will disprove a suggestion from certain sectors that the upper chamber—for some political reason—is deliberately ignoring all bills introduced by Rep. Heinz Hofschneider.
The passage of the bill comes amid CUC’s reported plan to seek proposals from private companies interested in running the main power plant on Saipan and selling energy back to the utility for distribution to the community. CUC executive director Antonio Muna recently told lawmakers that CUC plans to get the “request for proposals” within the next six months.
Under the pending privatization bill, however, CUC will be required to sell its power system for at least $250 million through a bid process.
Proponents of the bill want CUC to do away with the RFP process, which they say, “injects into the process an unacceptable element of subjectivity and as a result participants in the process lack confidence in it and tend to file protests against the content of the requests or the procedures for evaluating them.”
The bill would also restore the CUC board of directors.
