House PUTC Committee to subpoena CUC’s bank statement

Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications agreed yesterday to issue a subpoena to compel the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to submit its financial bank statement.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Vincent S. Aldan (Ind-Saipan), will issue the subpoena if CUC can’t submit the requested documents by the deadline today, Wednesday.

Aldan said the committee had asked acting CUC executive director Betty G. Terlaje to submit the financial statement from Bank of Guam and that CUC asked for a 10-day extension and they gave it more than 10 days.

Aldan said today, Wednesday, is CUC’s final day to submit the bank statement.

Before voting on a motion to issue a subpoena, Aldan clarified that what they’re talking about is the actual bank account statement from BOG itself and not CUC’s financial record keeping and spreadsheet “or any of that.”

He said the reason for that is because they want to know if CUC has complied with the court’s Stipulated Order No. 1 to ensure that they have a separate account for emergency, a separate account for maintenance and operations, and separate accounts for their general funds and security deposit.

“They all cannot be commingled,” said Aldan, adding that that’s the committee is trying to find out where CUC stands financially.

In order to do that, he said, they need the actual bank account, the bank account number with the name or description of that bank account to ensure that it is separated, in accordance with Stipulated Order No. 1.

Stipulated Order No. 1 refers to CUC projects mandated by the U.S. District Court for the NMI that focuses on drinking water and wastewater and the restructuring of CUC’s organization.

In response to Rep. Marissa Renee Flores’ (D-Saipan) question, House legal counsel John Bradley said there is no conflict if the committee will vote that day (Tuesday) to issue a subpoena—one day before the extension deadline.

Bradley said the committee has the authority to consider and to vote whether or not to issue a subpoena, regardless of some future act.

“Obviously I’m assuming that the chairman, if the vote is approved, will wait until and see whether the documents arrive tomorrow. And then if they do not, consider issuing the subpoena after that,” Aldan said.

All six committee members present at the meeting voted “yes” to issue the subpoena. They were Aldan, and Reps. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan), Marissa Renee Flores (Ind-Saipan), Diego Vincent F. Camacho (D-Saipan), Blas Jonathan T. Attao (Ind-Saipan), and Angelo A. Camacho (Ind-Saipan).