House Speaker Oscar M. Babauta was impressed with Lt. Gov. Timothy Villagomez\u2019s assessment of the state of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. yesterday at the Multi-Purpose Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must agree with the Lieutenant Governor\u2019s assessment because of the fact that he has been there, he has managed it. He has led the corporation several years ago in a positive manner,\u201d Babauta told Saipan Tribune after the State of the Commonwealth Address and State of the Washington Office Report.<\/p>\n
The speaker said he understands the frustration of the Fitial administration in trying to initiate basic repairs of the engines at power plants to uplift the utility corporation \u201cboth financially and mechanically.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it is a welcome idea of having first to engage the potential investors as far as fuel supply is concerned. And hopefully that will bring down the cost of fuel that is normally purchased on a monthly basis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Babauta also agreed with Villagomez\u2019s stated long-term plan to privatize CUC.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that is the only situation that will bring this corporation out of its financial mess\u2026of course,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But the speaker stressed the need to look at the details of such a privatization plan, \u201cwhether it is more beneficial to our people. So those are several questions that need to be addressed.\u201d <\/p>\n
Babauta said he welcomes the administration\u2019s initial step, which is to recuperate those engines and bring them up to par. He said such repair is important so CUC can sell the power to big companies, hotels, and garment factories.<\/p>\n
Babauta said the Legislature allowed Villagomez to report on the state of CUC so that the lieutenant governor could present the condition of the utility corporation himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House Speaker Oscar M. Babauta was impressed with Lt. Gov. Timothy Villagomez\u2019s assessment of the state of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. yesterday at the Multi-Purpose Center.<\/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-99990","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\/99990","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=99990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}