Essential public services on Saipan that require trucks and other heavy equipment have been temporarily suspended as there is no money to pay for equipment rentals, according to Mayor Juan B. Tudela yesterday. <\/p>\n
He asked for the \u201cpatience and understanding\u201d of the community while the CNMI government tries to find the $200,000 needed to fund a local appropriation that became law six weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Gov. Juan N. Babauta signed into law Saipan Local Law No. 14-10 on Oct. 15. The new measure provides over $5.1 million for eight local projects, including $200,000 for the long-overdue heavy equipment rentals for the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Tudela said, however, that no funds are available for the projects, which also include money going to the water task force, emergency road paving, municipal scholarships and others.<\/p>\n
He said that in addition to the $200,000 rental debt, an additional $250,000 has been credited to local equipment vendors for more rentals due to recent heavy rains. However, when vendors learned that no payment was forthcoming, all rentals to the mayor\u2019s office were cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means,\u201d he said, \u201cthat requests from the general public for road repairs, coral deliveries, clearing, grading and so on must be suspended until such time as local vendors have been paid.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he said the backlog of job requests from the public for assistance continues to grow daily.<\/p>\n
According to Tudela, all the heavy equipment owned by the municipality were purchased at least a decade ago and are today inoperative, extremely undependable and subject to very frequent breakdowns. He said the municipality needs new dump trucks, front-end loaders and other essential heavy equipment just to \u201cnormalize\u201d the daily operations and maintain the island\u2019s more than 40 miles of unpaved roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appeal to the general public to be more patient because we are doing all we can within our limited resources,\u201d said Tudela. \u201cWe ask for their patience and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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