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Telesource reiterates offer of power generator for Saipan
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Posted on Apr 03 2008
Telesource CNMI Inc. has reiterated its offer to transfer one of its generators on Tinian to the Saipan power plant.
The company, which operates the Tinian power plant, took up the idea with the House Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications after receiving no response from the Fitial administration, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., or the Legislature.
“Our ideas may be seemingly too good to be true, as some have said, but the failure to investigate and explore further the validity of our idea or proposal is pure negligence,” Telesource CEO and president Nidal Z. Zayed told the newly appointed PUTC chairman, Rep. Victor B. Hocog yesterday.
Zayed lashed at the CNMI government for ignoring the proposals floated by his company over the past two years, while spending “a fortune of our taxpayer’s money…on the procurement of multiple consultants who write and deliver flawed [requests for proposal for the privatization of the Saipan power system].”
On Wednesday, March 26, 2008, Telesource proposed the temporary relocation of the 10MW generator from Tinian to Saipan. The firm said it was prepared to pay for the relocation, commissioning, maintenance, and operation of the engines on Saipan, and for the ultimate relocation of the engines back to Tinian.
But the proposal was met with lukewarm response, if not skepticism from some elected officials.
Zayed said that Telesource submitted a similar idea to the CNMI government as far back as July 2006, but it had never received a reply to its offer.
Another option being examined is to lay down cables on the ocean bed between Tinian and Saipan, where electrical power can then be shared by both islands.
