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Muna to evaluate CUC’s $15 million receivables
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Posted on May 07 2008
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Antonio Muna said he is going to evaluate CUC’s receivables portfolio to find a solution to the $15 million in uncollected bills from various customers.
“Receivables management is a matter of ensuring that we can identify what are the performing assets,” Muna told the media.
In its recent report to the Legislature, CUC said that residential, government, and commercial customers on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota owe the utility agency a total of $15,428,944.
Of the $15.4 million, Saipan’s residential and commercial customers are the ones with the biggest arrears: $13.1 million.
To address these uncollected bills, Muna underscored the need to evaluate the receivables portfolio to know which ones are performing and which ones are not.
Citing a $15 million receivables as an example, Muna said if they find that only $5 million of those are performing, then they have to secure the $5 million and come to terms with the rest.
“Because if they are not performing assets, we need to deal with those in a different manner. We expect to identify some troubled asset management procedure or criteria and address that separately from performing assets,” he said.
“If there is any way to get any kind of performance from it, we will definitely do that. We need to settle and we need to get out and through litigations,” Muna said.
He said CUC will probably come up with a set of criteria or program to address the receivables once and for all and get them to where they can be performing or at least resurrected.
“If not, we have to come to terms with the reality that it’s just a lost opportunity situation,” Muna said.
“I really need to focus on making sure that we don’t lose track. I want to make sure that we don’t lose economic opportunity going forward,” he added.
