CUC has $504,000 to pay Aggreko

Commonwealth Utilities Corp. Executive Director Antonio Muna said yesterday they have $504,000 to pay Aggreko International for this month’s billing.

In an interview with Saipan Tribune, Muna said the due date for payment was last Friday, however, CUC has not yet received the billing from Aggreko.

He said he just needs clarification for the amount and then pay Aggreko.

“I want to make sure we are all on the same page. We will schedule them for payment as well as all other IPPs (Independent Power Producers),” the executive director said.

Muna said the available money comes from CUC’s collection from customers—be it individuals, commercials, and government agencies.

He said he has to e-mail Aggreko to check if they already sent out the billing to CUC.

“On the contract it states we supposed to pay at a certain period prior to the month. So we would expect the billing from them sometime last week. But there’s so much going on I didn’t get a chance… I just called the accounts payable folks, they haven’t received it yet,” Muna said.

The $504,000 would be CUC’s second payment after the utility agency made the $1.5 million down payment.

Muna said he wants to get clear understanding with respect to the amount to be paid considering that when Aggreko started they only produced the minimal amount of kilowatt-hour of power supply.

He said the $1.5 million covers the first month and the last two months so it is really a three-month payment situation.

Every four weeks, Muna said, CUC will pay Aggreko $504,000.

The CUC official said Aggreko appears to be performing as what they have expected as far as hooking up to the electrical grid and the stability of the generator units.

“ I think not only from the standpoint of power production. I think everyone’s realized maybe some of the appliance issues, how things were burning out, and the like that now with the stability of production we’re not having as many problems in that regard as we did before,” Muna said.

CUC hired Aggreko to provide up to 15 megawatts of emergency power to Saipan. The monthly rate will cost $336,000 or $504,000, depending on whether CUC avails of 10 megawatt or 15 megawatt of electrical power.

Last month, the Aggreko generators were completely installed and turned on. As a result, the island has not experienced rotating outages anymore.