Governor wants power project delay resolved

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio yesterday sought the speedy resolution of the dispute over the stalled $120 million power project designed to increase the energy capacity of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation in order to avert severe power outages.

Describing the power situation as critical, the governor pressed officials of the utilities company to meet with the Attorney General’s Office to find ways how the power expansion project could proceed expeditiously.

According to Tenorio, he is worried that failure to build the new power plant, whose construction had been initially scheduled to begin late last year, could cripple power supply on the main island of Saipan.

“The power situation now is very critical,” Tenorio said in an interview, without providing details. “If it’s going to take us additional two to three years from now to build the power plant we don’t know what will happen,” he added.

The Tribune sought the comments of CUC Executive Director Timothy P. Villagomez, but he did not return the call.

The delay could also mean additional expenses on the part of the cash-strapped CUC which has to put up millions in dollars to refurbish its aging power plants to meet the requirements set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

CUC has embarked on an ambitious expansion program of its power plants in the island in anticipation of the increase demand for power supply by year 2000.

The project has been pushed back after companies competing for the multi-million power project have been locked in a legal dispute since CUC awarded the construction of the 80-megawatt plant to Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp. and its US partner Sithe Energies, Inc. last year.

Consortium Alsons, Tomen, Singapore Power and Tan Holdings Corp., whose proposal was lower than that of Marubeni-Sithe, had protested the decision on grounds that an in-house selection committee of CUC erred in choosing the winning bid.

The Office of the Public Auditor has suspended the bidding until the CUC selects an independent engineering firm that will re-evaluate the proposals submitted by 13 companies vying for the multi-million project.

But until now the CUC has yet to choose the engineering company that will determine the winning bid in what is touted as the largest deal ever in the Northern Marianas, leading Marubeni-Sithe to seek legislative intervention to solve the legal snag.

“Hopefully this issue will be resolved so we could avoid the delay in the construction of the power plant,” Tenorio said.