Finance Secretary Fermin M. Atalig said that the administration\u2019s reprogrammed money for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. remains unspent, noting that it would only be tapped in extreme situations, such as the agency\u2019s failure to buy fuel using its own resources.<\/p>\n
In particular, Atalig said that the $5.1 million reprogrammed fund is in a reserve account.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s set aside for emergency. We\u2019ve not released those funds. We just set it aside for CUC\u2019s emergency needs,\u201d said Atalig in an interview yesterday.<\/p>\n
Last month, Gov. Juan N. Babauta authorized the reprogramming of various project funds totaling $5.1 million to the CUC Emergency Fuel Contingency Fund.<\/p>\n
These include $1.5 million from the Tobacco Control Fund; $146,766 from the Developer\u2019s Tax; $1.3 from Active Revolving Accounts; $991,575 from old remaining budgets; $387,787 from the Tobacco Settlement; and $815,000 from others.<\/p>\n
The opposition in the House of Representatives, however, has questioned the legality of this action. The House leadership said it only supports the governor\u2019s legal reprogramming of public funds for CUC and \u201cstrongly disapproves of any illegal reprogramming of public funds.\u201d It said the governor should not take money from essential services such as health programs.<\/p>\n
For his part, Atalig noted that the entire Legislature\u2014through a resolution\u2014had given the governor 100 percent reprogramming authority to tap all funds to address the CUC crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are questioning the legality of the payments to CUC but we are in an emergency,\u201d he said. He said that while the affected programs are also important, \u201csomebody has to make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe governor obviously made the decision. Power is an urgent concern,\u201d Atalig said.<\/p>\n
The Finance secretary said the affected accounts would be replenished in the next fiscal year. \u201cIt\u2019s a continuous collection effort. Next year, it can be replenished.\u201d<\/p>\n
At present, the government has paid the CUC $6.4 million more than the appropriated amount of $5 million. Atalig had reported that the government paid CUC a total of $11.4 million for fiscal year 2005. This extra payment, he said, is needed amid the soaring fuel prices.<\/p>\n
CUC reportedly consumes 3 million gallons of fuel a month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finance Secretary Fermin M. Atalig said that the administration\u2019s reprogrammed money for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. remains unspent, noting that it would only be tapped in extreme situations, such as the agency\u2019s failure to buy fuel using its own resources.<\/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-92975","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\/92975","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=92975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}