Inos renews emergency declaration for CUC

Gov. Eloy S. Inos extended anew on Friday the declaration of a state of significant emergency at the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.

Like previous declarations, the governor cited the agency’s financial crisis and dearth of technical workers as the main reasons for continuing the emergency status for CUC.

“CUC is owed over $20 million by the Public School System and the Commonwealth Health Center and is owed millions more by others users,” said Inos in his declaration.

The governor added that although the CNMI economy has recently improved, the improvement is only marginal and the economy and the government’s finances are still fragile.

“The government strains to meet its obligations,” Inos said.

The declaration also noted that CUC often only has days’ worth of purchased fuel to power its generators because it lacks the money to buy oil from its sole, cash-only supplier.

“CUC has no credit or other means to buy fuel other than the revenue its collects from its customers.”

On the lack of technical workers, Inos said the CNMI doesn’t have enough U.S. citizens or U.S. resident technical specialists at CUC to perform the power generation work, particularly specialists with experience in the type of engines that CUC uses.

“U.S. citizens with the necessary skills are not readily available in the CNMI and it is costly to recruit from the United States. CUC believes that the vast majority of skills sets, considering its cash restrictions, must come from non-U.S. personnel.”

Inos added that CUC has tried to hire diesel mechanics in the CNMI in the past, but hasn’t been successful in finding enough candidates.

He said CUC’s renewal of contracts and hiring of foreign expert workers is necessary to sustain the integrity of CUC’s systems.

He urged the Legislature to amend “local law to allow CUC to continue employing the services of foreign workers for such technical positions difficult to fill and provide for a reasonable transition period.”

CUC has been under a state of emergency for about the nine years now.

That allows the government to “suspend all statutory or regulatory provisions as required; and utilize all available resources of the Commonwealth government and its political subdivisions as reasonably necessary to respond to the emergency.”