Rep. Arnold Palacios has urged Commonwealth Utilities Corp. chair Herman P. Sablan to put out a more comprehensive performance report for the past year.<\/p>\n
Palacios and Rep. David Apatang attended the CUC board of directors\u2019 meeting yesterday, when Sablan and CUC executive director Lorraine Babauta each delivered their annual reports.<\/p>\n
A member of the Public Utilities, Transportation and Communication Committee at the House of the Representatives, Palacios described Sablan\u2019s report as \u201cvery brief.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CUC chair, he added, should release a more thorough assessment of the utilities corporation and make it available to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that CUC is currently stable as it is. The board and management have made progress. But as residents of the CNMI, we all know that there are still a lot of challenges that the corporation needs to identify, articulate, and address,\u201d Palacios said in an interview.<\/p>\n
In his report, Sablan said that guiding \u201cthis ever-controversial corporation\u201d over the past year has been a challenge. <\/p>\n
\u201cOver the past 12 months, CUC has seen the best and worst of times. Even amongst the board, there\u2019s been controversy and differences of opinions, but that\u2019s what made this challenge worth the while,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n
He also commended Babauta for her patience and impartiality amid the differing opinions of the board members.<\/p>\n
Among the achievements highlighted by Sablan were the establishment of the Appeals Committee in Oct. 2003, the reinstatement of acceptance of major credit cards for payment of utility bills for customer convenience, and the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the Commonwealth Development Authority regarding the operation of the Water Task Force.<\/p>\n
Sablan noted that under the leadership of CUC director Velma Ann Palacios, the Personnel Committee helped set up the corporation\u2019s first classification and compensation plan for its employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cCUC has long been without such plan and this is a great achievement, as it will ensure fair hiring practices and compensation and promotion of our employees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that the Personnel Committee has started revision of CUC\u2019s human resources manual and development of a performance appraisal form, and has been prompt to hear employee appeals and grievances.<\/p>\n
On the operations side, the CUC board has approved amendments to its electric service regulations regarding its line extension policy, and changed the application of the 1-percent late charge from 15 days to 30 days.<\/p>\n
Sablan expressed disappointment over the CUC board\u2019s decision to cancel the request for proposals for the planned water desalination project, which earned much controversy and debate.<\/p>\n
But he was quick to add, \u201cAlthough I was very disappointed, I must respect each board member\u2019s opinion and right to vote as they did. However, I hope that the new chairman will follow through and ensure Saipan\u2019s water crisis is addressed immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Arnold Palacios has urged Commonwealth Utilities Corp. chair Herman P. Sablan to put out a more comprehensive performance report for the past year.<\/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-82437","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\/82437","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=82437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}