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Phone surcharge fees to fund 911 operations junked
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Posted on May 16 2000
The House of Representatives has junked a proposal to impose monthly surcharge fees for users of both landline and cellular telephone services in the CNMI in order to fund 911 emergency operations on the island.
Offered by Rep. David M. Apatang, the measure fails to address the procedures on how such fees would be implemented and their impact on the government which is also phone subscriber and at the same time owner of the 911 system, according to a report prepared by the House Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications.
The panel, which is chaired by Rep. Rosiky F. Camacho, is in fact currently reviewing a similar proposal which is “more detailed and adequate” than the provisions of HB 12-9.
“The committee at this time believes that surcharge fees may grow to considerable amounts for most families in the case of having multiple pagers, cellular phones as well as phone lines into homes,” added the report which the House adopted in its session last week.
Under Mr. Apatang’s bill, a surcharge fee not more than $1 would be billed every month per access line, up to maximum of 10 lines per account bill for local exchange telephone service, and another dollar for each mobile phone line, not exceeding 25 accounts numbers per subscriber.
These charges would be applicable only to commercial and government subscribers as residential lines would only be assessed the equivalent of one access line regardless of the number of lines the resident may have.
The proposed fees would have been intended to provide adequate funding for continuous operation, maintenance and equipment modernization of the 911 system administered by the Department of Public Safety.
The Department of Finance would also have been tasked to set up a special account for the surcharge collections, which would be strictly earmarked for the 911 operations.
