The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. needs to raise $2.5 million in a week to be able to meet its obligations, including a $2.86 million payment to Mobil Marianas and the next payroll.<\/p>\n
CUC comptroller Sohale Samari reported that, as of yesterday morning, the corporation had $1.3 million in available cash. However, CUC has to meet obligations totaling $3.8 million that are due by the end of next week.<\/p>\n
This includes a $2.86 million payment to Mobil for production fuel, about $600,000 for the personnel\u2019s salary and overtime pay for work done following Supertyphoon Chaba, and $340,000 for other miscellaneous expenses.<\/p>\n
Samari, however, informed the CUC board of directors of different possible sources of revenue that can help the corporation meet its commitments.<\/p>\n
On top of this is the $650,000 payment due from the CNMI government on Sept. 15. Samari also expressed confidence that CUC will be able to raise at least $1 million out of the remaining $1.8 million shortfall from collections from customers. He noted that CUC\u2019s collection averages $275,000 daily.<\/p>\n
The corporation could encash its certificates of deposit to cover the balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother scenario is if the government does not make a payment by Sept. 15,\u201d Samari said. CUC will then have to rely on the $1 million projected collection from customers and on the cash from the CDs.<\/p>\n
He said that CUC\u2019s certificates of deposit currently amount to $7.8 million. However, $2.8 million of this has already been allotted for some expenses, leaving CUC only $5 million available for its operational expenses.<\/p>\n
The $650,000 payment from government comes pursuant to its agreement with CUC, following a court order stopping CUC from disconnecting utility services to the government. As of July 31, the government owed CUC $17.9 million.<\/p>\n
At yesterday\u2019s board meeting, CUC legal counsel Kay Delafield said the corporation can bring the government to court for breach of agreement if it fails to make a payment next week.<\/p>\n
Samari also reported that 10 major accounts have been identified for collection. He said letters will be sent to these delinquent customers to force them to settle their accounts immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. needs to raise $2.5 million in a week to be able to meet its obligations, including a $2.86 million payment to Mobil Marianas and the next payroll.<\/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-83909","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\/83909","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=83909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}