The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. said its collection from the central government was up $1.75 million in April compared with the same period last year. However, the government is still behind its payment schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough collections from the government are ahead of last year, government payments are less than current billings,\u201d said CUC acting comptroller Ed Williams in a report.<\/p>\n
He noted that, as soon as CUC advised the government last April of disconnection of accounts, the government asked the court for a temporary restraining order. The petition was granted. The TRO remains in effect until Sept. 1, 2004.<\/p>\n
During this time through August, the government has agreed to pay CUC a total of $1.95 million, with a minimum payment of $500,000 during any given month.<\/p>\n
Overall, Williams said that CUC\u2019s collections for utilities as of April 2004 reached $37.7 million, which is $2.7 million greater than its collection during the first seven months last year.<\/p>\n
He said collections from residential and commercial customers went up by $950,000.<\/p>\n
Earlier, CUC reported over $31 million in receivables, including $16.2 million\u2014or 53 percent\u2014from the government and $14.5 million from residential and commercial customers.<\/p>\n
Of the $14.5 million due from residential and commercial customers, CUC estimates that about $8.6 million or 58 percent is uncollectible. <\/p>\n
CUC disclosed last week that it is currently studying a fuel adjustment charge for its electricity rates following projections that the utility firm\u2019s fuel expense this year would overshoot by $7 million to $8 million.<\/p>\n
CUC had budgeted $31 million for fuel expenses for FY 2004, but due to increases in fuel prices, expenses would balloon to $39 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis large difference cannot be set-off entirely by reprogramming funds within the budget,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n
As a result, the utility firm is now looking at the possible implementation of rate adjustments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m requested that I gather information pertaining to the development and implementation of a fuel adjustment charge for possible inclusion as an add-on to CUC\u2019s rates for electricity,\u201d said Williams. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. said its collection from the central government was up $1.75 million in April compared with the same period last year. However, the government is still behind its payment schedule.<\/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-81916","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\/81916","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=81916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}