The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. took a step yesterday toward removing the water and sewer services from its responsibility.<\/p>\n
The CUC board of directors voted unanimously to adopt a resolution urging the Babauta administration to propose to the Legislature an amendment to the CUC Act to remove the water and sewer operation from the utility firm\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n
In the resolution, the CUC board of directors expressed belief that \u201cit is in the best interest of the corporation to be divested of the operation of water and sewer services while maintaining for itself the operation of the power services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe divestiture of the water and sewer services from the corporation will promote efficiency in the delivery of water, sewer, and power services, which will further result in reduced cost to consumers to these services,\u201d a portion of the resolution reads.<\/p>\n
CUC vice chairman Herman P. Sablan said the board wants the Legislature to create a separate entity\u2014which may be called the \u201cCNMI Waterworks Authority\u201d\u2014to manage the operation of water and sewer services.<\/p>\n
Sablan, who heads the CUC committee on operations, said the agency authority would be placed under the CNMI central government. CUC, on the other hand, would continue to handle power generation and power distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think that there\u2019s a lot of good that could come out of separating water and sewer services from CUC,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n
For instance, he said, it would be easier to meet with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements because issues could be addressed more specifically.<\/p>\n
He added that the separation would pave the way for a better billing process and eliminate the current system under which revenues collected from power services subsidize the water and sewer operations.<\/p>\n
Sablan said CUC personnel would be revamped if the plan goes through, but he assured that existing employees would be protected during the transition.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecific issues will be addressed at a later date, once we see the response of the Executive Branch and the Legislature,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He said the resolution will be transmitted to Gov. Juan N. Babauta this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. took a step yesterday toward removing the water and sewer services from its responsibility.<\/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-86418","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\/86418","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=86418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}