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CUC: Proposed lease agreement with CPA still under negotiation
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Posted on May 14 2009
The memorandum of agreement being proposed by the Commonwealth Ports Authority with the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. could be far off in the future following admission Wednesday by CUC executive director Antonio Muña that the agency will need more time to fully understand the prior “agreement” that took place when CUC began using a CPA property on Rota.
It was earlier reported that CPA wants a lease agreement with CUC concerning the location of a power plant on Rota that ports officials claim has been sitting on the property for many years now without any benefit to CPA.
“We really need to spend more time in searching on what’s really our obligation to CPA in utilizing the property…because I believe that if there was supposed to be some kind of lease agreement it should have been done from the very beginning,” Muña told Saipan Tribune, adding that after many years of having CUC assets on CPA property, it is only now that a lease agreement is being proposed.
In a letter to Muña, CPA executive director Efrain F. Camacho demands that the use of the property be put in writing in a form of memorandum of agreement or a lease between the two agencies.
The ports authority said CUC could also offset CPA’s monthly utilities obligation in exchange for the use of the ports property.
On Wednesday, Muña pointed out that “all conditions” must be agreed upon by both parties in an MOU.
“The discussion on the issue is an ongoing process,” he said, but he pointed out that “CUC assets have been there since time immemorial” or prior to the creation of CPA.
“So the question now is: To what extent did they have an understanding? Why would anyone award CPA property where CUC assets are in place? Or why were CUC assets allowed to be there on CPA property? Those are important questions that need to be addressed,” Muña said, admitting that no document has so far been uncovered to explain the situation.
