Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Charles V. Cepeda welcomed the Fitial administration\u2019s pronouncement that the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. will regain its autonomous status.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good that the administration is thinking things through and considering other options,\u201d said Cepeda yesterday. \u201cIt means that the administration is being open-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial said Friday last week that the executive order that transferred CUC to the Department of Public Works is only a temporary measure to solve the CUC crisis.<\/p>\n
He said that, once CUC is \u201ccured\u201d of its financial woes, it will revert to its original status as a public corporation. Fitial said this would take place within the year. The administration hopes to solve the CUC crisis within 90 days.<\/p>\n
Cepeda was among thse who expressed opposition to the CUC transfer to DPW, saying it would only result in more bureaucratic red tape.<\/p>\n
He said that allowing CUC to be governed by a competent board remains the best approach.<\/p>\n
House minority leader Arnold I. Palacios has likewise opposed the CUC transfer, saying it is too big an agency to be reduced into a mere division under a department.<\/p>\n
He said that if the administration wants control of the agency, it could just have created a separate department for CUC under the Executive Branch.<\/p>\n
The administration said Friday that CUC is currently insolvent. It said that CUC\u2019s total net assets balance reflected a net deficiency of $13 million in fiscal year 2003 and $30.3 million in FY 2004. <\/p>\n
The administration said that CUC\u2019s financial solvency will be immediately restored if its over $100 million debt with the Commonwealth Development Authority is written off through legislation. If this is done, CUC\u2019s net asset would immediately improve to $116.8 million. <\/p>\n
At the same time, the administration aims to repair Power Plants 1 and 2 engines to be able to generate an additional 20 to 30MW, which would translate to more revenues. <\/p>\n
Fitial said a revitalized and independent CUC would be \u201cwithout political interference\u201d and its rate adjustments would be subject to a Public Utility Commission.<\/p>\n
A revitalized CUC, he said, will not only be posting a 100-percent rate recovery for its power, but also for its water and sewer services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Charles V. Cepeda welcomed the Fitial administration\u2019s pronouncement that the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. will regain its autonomous status.<\/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-99488","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\/99488","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=99488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}