CUC backtracks on Lorraine’s replacement

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has changed track on its initial plan to hire a new executive director, opting instead to employ an American Samoan consultant to assist the current CUC administrator.

The CUC board of directors will convene today—its third meeting in a week—to make a final decision on the plan to hire Abe Malea, former executive director of the American Samoa Power Authority and current chief executive officer of the Development Bank of American Samoa.

During the board’s Friday meeting, it was proposed to procure Malea’s consultancy services on an emergency basis—or without soliciting proposals from other individuals—and have him help current CUC executive director Lorraine Babauta.

Copies of Malea’s resume were distributed during the meeting for the board members’ review.

The new proposal was made after various elected officials and community members expressed their opposition to the reported plan to replace Babauta.

Accordingly, the agenda for today’s meeting indicated “procurement of professional consulting services” as its main item, no longer the phrase “executive director’s position” which appeared in the agenda for the CUC board’s meetings on April 14 and 15.

“Firing [Babauta] was never the intention of the board nor the administration. Our intent has always been to find a solution to help the executive director,” acting CUC chairman Herman P. Sablan said.

Sablan also noted that CUC was inclined to take the emergency procurement process in hiring Malea, despite a call by the Saipan Chamber of Commerce to open the application to local individuals.

“We are in a very critical situation right now, and what we need is financial assistance from outside. Therefore we need somebody who is well connected with federal agencies and the banks and at same time, has knowledge of utility operations,” Sablan said. “Just look at this guy’s resume. We already know that we can’t match that. As much as we want our own people to come in and work, we need to hire somebody who can really assist the executive director.”

Malea stands to be paid $200,000 for a one-year consultancy contract, of which about 80 percent will come from the federal government, Sablan said.
According to Malea’s resume, he has been instrumental in founding the Pacific Power Association and the Pacific Water Association.

As ASPA executive director, Malea assembled and supervised a management team that reversed the power firm’s record of poor financial performance and substandard service and eliminated a $6.5 million deficit inherited in 1986, by 1992.

Malea also wrote that he administered the merger of American Samoa’s water and wastewater services with the power firm in 1988, as part of a government effort to make utility operation more effective. By 1995, ASPA included electricity, water, wastewater, energy, petroleum management, solid waste and highways. In 1997, ASPA consisted of water, electricity, wastewater, and solid waste, he said.

Further, Malea said he conducted a survey of technical training facilities in the South Pacific Region for the United Nations Pacific Energy Development Program in 1990, which led to the Apprenticeship Training Program.