Citing the power rate adjustment\u2019s likely adverse impact on business costs, the private sector is pleading with Gov. Juan N. Babauta to not sign the fuel surcharge regulations which the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. approved yesterday.<\/p>\n
Adopted on an emergency basis, the regulations need only the governor\u2019s concurrence in order to become effective for a period of 120 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the governor sees the fuel surcharge for what it is: an outcome of the lack of planning on the part of CUC. I hope he does not sign it, and instead asks CUC to go back to the table and focus on the many other options available to them,\u201d said Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Alex Sablan. \u201cNot having cash in the bank is not enough reason to impose a fuel surcharge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan added that the implementation of the surcharge was \u201cnot an inevitable solution\u201d to CUC\u2019s financial troubles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very discouraged. We don\u2019t think CUC needs the surcharge. What they need to do is to run the utility company like any business and devise long-term and short-term plans,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He also raised concern about CUC\u2019s failure to inform the public of its Tuesday meeting ahead of time. No notice of the meeting was issued until yesterday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cLess than a week ago, we were told that the fuel surcharge is \u2018a dead issue.\u2019 Now, it\u2019s approved,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands also expressed disappointment over the decision of the CUC board of directors on the fuel surcharge.<\/p>\n
HANMI president Lynn Knight said she doubts that the fuel surcharge was the right and only available move for CUC, given the various ideas and suggestions that have been laid out to the utility firm over the past months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wish that CUC would look at other ways they could cut their costs of operating and run more efficiently,\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n
She also cited the impact that the fuel surcharge will have on the business community, as well as the consumers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe business community has gone through so much belt tightening over the last few years. Our costs of doing business here are already very high. One and a half cents does not sound like a lot. But if you\u2019re a big consumer of power, it really adds up fast. It\u2019s very likely that some business who cannot afford the increase or who are operating on a slim margin now may have to pass along the cost to customers,\u201d Knight said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Citing the power rate adjustment\u2019s likely adverse impact on business costs, the private sector is pleading with Gov. Juan N. Babauta to not sign the fuel surcharge regulations which the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. approved yesterday.<\/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-87488","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\/87488","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=87488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}