CUC to ask for OPA extension

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. told Saipan Tribune yesterday that it would ask for an extension to submit their formal response after a draft audit was submitted to the utilities company by the Office of the Public Auditor last March 17. The deadline to respond expired last Sunday.

Documents obtained by Saipan Tribune Sunday indicate that the OPA audit recommends the CUC corporate structure should be looked into and completely overhauled after they found that the corporation has failed as an independent agency.

According to the audit, CUC is riddled with issues pertaining to sustainability and conflicts against the corporation’s ability to carry out its fiduciary duties due to numerous political influences in the form of both the legislative branch and executive branch and past CUC directors’ inability to establish adequate rates to recover operational costs.

OPA has looked at CUC’s legal and organizational structure, covering everything since its birth in 1985.

CUC executive director Gary Camacho said yesterday that he would be requesting the OPA for an extension to submit their response. The timeline of the extension was not provided, but Camacho assured that a request to extend would certainly be sent.

The OPA draft audit was dated March 17 and was sent to Camacho, CUC board chair Adelina Roberto, and CUC legal counsel James Sirok. OPA gave CUC 30 days to submit their response. The deadline for CUC expired last April 16.

According to Camacho, CUC failed to respond to the OPA audit due to the fact that the corporation has had a “busy three weeks.”

“CUC is currently reviewing this document, and I have yet to hear from the board, so I would request for an extension because a lot of things have been happening. We would step back and continue to review [the OPA audit] to prepare a proper response,” said Camacho.

When Saipan Tribune asked whether the audit was brought up during any of the CUC board meetings, Camacho replied, “I believe it has.”

“There is a lot of information that our board members need to review to prepare their response. We would be working with them for any input management has in this regard,” said Camacho.

“We are hopeful that something would be prepared soon, but that requires an extension,” he added.

Camacho assured that the “best decisions would be solicited in moving forward to better the corporation and our services to the community.”