‘Fraction of CUC reprogrammed money spent’

Only a little over $1 million of the $5 million reprogrammed money from local accounts has been spent for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., according to Finance Secretary Fermin M. Atalig.

In an interview Friday, Atalig said that as of Sept. 12, the money requested under a CUC emergency account totaled $1.025 million.

“Since that time, we’ve received no new funding requests. So I’d say that the figure remains the same,” said Atalig.

Following the May 19 state of emergency declaration on CUC, Gov. Juan N. Babauta has set aside or reprogrammed $5.1 million from local accounts and $2.7 million from federal grants.

The Marianas Public Lands Authority has reportedly agreed to reprogram $1 million for CUC and to pre-pay some $300,000 for its utilities.

Earlier, CUC executive director Lorraine A. Babauta said that $3 million has been used up for the repair of engines in the power generation plants.

Last Thursday, Babauta said that $1.5 million has been spent for Power Plant 1 alone.

Under the emergency period, CUC gets financial assistance from the Executive Branch on engine repairs and fuel purchase.

CUC spends $6.2 million in fuel consumption.

It only gets $4 million from customers payment and $1.2 million from fuel surcharge fee.

The remaining money is sourced from the Executive Branch.

The administration said that for fiscal year 2005 ending Sept. 30 this year, the government has paid $14 million to CUC for utilities.

This is $9 million more than the annual appropriation.

Under the budget law, the governor has authority to reprogram up to 25 percent of local funds for government operations.

Likewise, Babauta is given a 100 percent reprogramming authority by the CNMI 14th Legislature under the CUC emergency declaration.

In House Joint Resolution 14-36, both the House and the Senate expressed their support to the governor’s disaster emergency declaration and “[authorized] the governor 100 percent reprogramming authority from available Commonwealth funds to remedy the power generation problems.”

Later, though, the House leadership introduced resolutions expressing its objection to the governor’s reprogramming of funds, which it now termed as “illegal.”

Meantime, the governor has said that power supply on Saipan has stabilized but the emergency declaration continues due to lack of a reliable supply.

CUC is not yet finished with urgent repair work at the power generation plants.