Central govt gets disconnection notice

The CNMI’s central government has been issued disconnection notices for not being current with its utility bills, according to Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board chair David Sablan Jr.

During a 10-minute recess in their board meeting yesterday, Sablan told reporters that disconnection notices have been issued to central government accounts, warning them that failure to pay their bills will make them subject to disconnection.

The central government, together with the Public School System and the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., are three of CUC’s biggest customers. All three also have significant past arrears with CUC.

Sablan said that, except for past arrears owed, PSS and the healthcare corporation are both current with their monthly payments.

“It’s the government agencies within the central government that are not keeping current,” he said.

“With PSS and CHCC, they remain current and we have a working relation with them in that regard,” he said.

CHCC and CUC are under a court order that prevents CUC from disconnecting the hospital but in that same order, CHCC has to remain current with its monthly billing.

“All we need to do now with CHCC is sit down and discuss on how they are going to pay the $12 million past arrears that they owe us,” Sablan said.

PSS, on the other hand, is also current and has been paying $5,000 a month on their past due amounts. Sablan noted that PSS is looking into increasing that payment based on the funds that are available.

“With those two we have some sort of arrangement to pay their current bills which they are doing now and address the past dues as soon as there are some stabilization in their capability to pay their utility bills, so I am just waiting to see if there could be any bills that will be allocated by the Legislature or some sort of assistance to try to pay down their past dues,” Sablan said.

With the central government, a lot of its agencies also owe CUC past due amounts but CUC hasn’t worked on any arrangements with them, so at this point CUC had to give them disconnection notices, according to Sablan.

“So I encourage them to go up to the Department of Finance and discuss this matter so that they can settle these bills. What we want is at least to get those bills current like CHCC and PSS,” he said.

CUC executive director Alan Fletcher said that although they are staying current, with the current account receivables at $27 million in past arrears, CUC has no working capital and no reserves to ride out long periods of non-payment.

This could result in underfunded operations such as deferred maintenance, lack of supplies for typhoon readiness, and lack of monies for capital improvements and stipulated order projects.

For past arrears the central government collectively owes CUC $3 million, CHCC owes $13 million, and PSS owes $8 million.