A loud and strong ‘No!’

Many Saipan residents on Wednesday strongly opposed the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s proposal to make the power rate increases permanent, in a public hearing that had several persons expressing their anger at the utility agency.

Over 100 people led by Reps. Stanley T. Torres, Joseph Deleon Guerrero, and Francisco S. Dela Cruz showed up at the public hearing on the proposed amendments to the electric service regulations that was held at the Oleai Elementary School’s cafeteria.

Aside from expressing disappointment over the sudden rate increases and assailing CUC for its alleged inefficiency and negligence, other residents also raised other issues such as the agency’s rental of buildings. The audience would clap their hands loudly whenever residents would stand up and speak against CUC’s inefficiency or to express opposition to the new power rates.

Rep. Dela Cruz said that making the rate regulation permanent should be met with a resounding, “No at this time!”

Dela Cruz disclosed that he is thinking of introducing a resolution to turn CUC into a community cooperative utility.

“By going this route, the people of the Commonwealth will be the owners and stakeholders of this one last utility firm in our Commonwealth,” he said, drawing applause from the audience.

Dela Cruz said that on July 22 this year CUC implemented its new rate structure and the customers felt that this was not acceptable.

“I personally feel this was a drastic increase in power rate but I also feel that this will just be temporary so as to have CUC reorganize and restructure itself,” he noted.

Dela Cruz said the present rate is exorbitant and that CUC should decrease it.

“At this time I ask that CUC re-evaluate this rate as I feel that, at most, 21 cents per kilowatt-hour should be the present rate for residential customers,” he said.

Dela Cruz said the status at CUC was brought about by mismanagement and the inability to forecast costs associated with running the utility agency.

Rep. Deleon Guerrero proposed a gradual increase rather than the sudden high rates. He said that people are mad.

“It’s too sudden and too much of an increase…117 percent,” he said.

The congressman also asked as to who makes the decisions. “Is it the director? There’s no board? There’s no longer a governing board, just an advisory board,” Deleon Guerrero said. “As a matter of fact there is no board. I don’t think the governor has ever appointed an advisory board and, even if he did, they’re just advisory. They don’t make decisions. So who’s going to make the decision here. The director? Or the governor?”

The congressman also asked CUC to start looking at alternative fuel sources as well as alternative types of fuels that are cheaper.

Rep. Torres just observed the hearing. He later told Saipan Tribune that he is very happy because many residents stood up and expressed their anger over the high rates. Torres added that he did not speak at the hearing because he has a pending complaint against CUC.

A woman told the CUC panel that she kept asking about the fuel surcharge. “None of you can explain to me what it is. I get different explanations each time. One told me because you’re paying for your own oil. What does it mean? I am paying for my own fuel?” she said, drawing applause from the audience.

“Explain what fuel surcharge is to us. We would like to know,” she added.

Attorney Wesley Bogdan challenged CUC to prove their numbers, which he said are almost impossible to grasp.

Bogdan underscored the need to audit CUC costs and the importance of holding more public hearings on the rate issue.

Columnist Ruth Tighe agreed with Bogdan, saying she also can’t follow the numbers provided by CUC. Tighe said that, as long as CUC fails to show any efficiency, she does not see any reason why people should be asked to pay more.

Another speaker noted that the government, which is CUC’s biggest customer, cannot pay for its bills, “that’s why they’re pushing the bill to us.”

A woman asked if the hearing will result in any changes or if it is just a formality because a decision has already been made.

A father of eight expressed how hard it is now to pay the utility bills. He said CUC should not pass on to the people the cause of their own negligence.

Robert Young of the Economists.com explained to the audience CUC’s situation and also tried to answer some of the questions. Young told the Saipan Tribune that he believes that the CNMI and CUC have no other alternative but to pay for the price of oil.

“If you went to Mobil or Shell and ask for a discount because you could not pay for your gasoline, they will say, ‘Sorry, no money, no gas.’ And that’s the situation the CUC was in. They ran out of oil last year because they had exhausted all their financial reserves and they could not afford oil and Mobil would not extend them credit and so they stopped deliveries of oil,” Young said.

He said there was an islandwide blackout until the government gave money to CUC to start buying oil again.

“So the situation we are in right now, while it is very painful—and I acknowledge it is very painful—at least the rates are set at a level where CUC will not have to go to the government on a monthly basis to ask for money to pay for the cost of oil,” he pointed out.

CUC executive director Anthony C. Guerrero told Saipan Tribune that, for the most part, the message is clear that all the people at the hearing are saying, “It was kind of too much too soon.”

“I am faced with the responsibility of trying to provide the power and keep the lights on and when the government said…that the assistance will no longer be there, we were left with no other alternative but to recover our costs,” Guerrero said.

“We are meeting our fuel costs already…but we still have the challenge at the power plant, with the maintenance issues and the problems over there,” he said.

He said they are looking at alternatives and areas where they can tap sources of funding to fix the problem at the power plant.

“There’s CIP reprogramming that we are attempting, there’s also privatization that we’re exploring again,” he said.

CUC also conducted a public hearing on Tinian Tuesday. Yesterday, the hearing was on Rota. CUC’s legal counsel, retired Judge Edward Manibusan, served as moderator in the Saipan hearing.