The Commonwealth Ports Authority has failed to generate the needed revenue last month to meet debt service coverage for its $53 million debt as income from operations continue to nosedive.<\/p>\n
As of Jan. 31, 1999, the cash-strapped ports authority is short of $153,736 in servicing the airport bond. Likewise, it needs $27,705 to meet debt service requirement for the seaport bond for the same period.<\/p>\n
With its sinking funds, the ports authority has planned to raise airport fees to be able to repay its $53 million debt. However, the proposal has been strongly criticized by various sectors in the community claiming that the timing is wrong.<\/p>\n
As a result, the ports authority is studying the possibility of reducing by 15 the salaries of employees for one or two years to avoid massive layoffs in the financially troubled agency.<\/p>\n
Since the Asian economic woes began 17 months ago, the island’s tourism economy has been battered by the regional crisis pulling revenues down and forcing many establishments out of business.<\/p>\n
While Japan Airlines has increased its enplaned passengers by 30 percent, operating revenues declined by six percent in the aviation division or a total of $804,882 compared to the same period in 1998 due to continuous reduction in overall visitor arrivals as well as concessionaire and advertising fees.<\/p>\n
However, due to the cost-cutting measures implemented by management and staff, the ports authority was able to save $11,176 last month from operating activities.<\/p>\n
CPA incurred a net loss of $265,213 last month, a 15 percent improvement from the previous period. However, compared to December 1998, the net loss slightly increased by six percent.<\/p>\n
In the seaport operations, the ports authority registered operating revenue amounting to $304,714 or a 15 percent decline covering the same period in 1998 brought about by the drop in wharfage fees and gross receipts revenue. Furthermore, revenue tonnage slid by two percent.<\/p>\n
The seaport incurred some $80,932 in operating expenses, which is a 13 percent savings. Despite the slowdown in economy, the seaport continue to generate revenue as net income amounted to $210,793.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Ports Authority has failed to generate the needed revenue last month to meet debt service coverage for its $53 million debt as income from operations continue to nosedive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}