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CUC board to CFO: Update all accounts
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board has advised acting chief finance officer Joan Paraiso to review and update the accounts of some government agencies that still have unpaid balances. Paraiso made her financial report in last week’s regular board meeting at the CUC conference room at the Joeten Dandan Building.
Paraiso, in her report, told the CUC board the list of government agencies and departments that still need to settle their debt. Some agencies or departments on the list, however, no longer exists or had been merged with other departments as pointed out by Commonwealth Development Authority representative Ignacio Perez.
The said agencies were merged, no longer exists, or have been renamed by an executive order and public law passed by the Legislature.
These include the Mariana Islands Housing Authority, Division of Public Lands, Coastal Resources Management, Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund, and Credit Union Office still have unsettled bills with CUC.
MIHA, for one, has been renamed to the Northern Marianas Housing Corp. while DPL, which initially was a division under the Department of Lands and Natural Resources, became a separate agency in 2006 after then governor Benigno R. Fitial signed House Bill 15-57 that turned into PL 15-2.
PL 15-2 also abolished the Marianas Public Lands Authority with the former autonomous agency falling under the control of the Department of Public Lands.
The Coastal Resources Management merged with the Division of Environmental Quality to become the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality, while the NMIRF turned into the NMI Settlement Fund. CUO, on the other hand, is an agency that no longer exists.
However, the total amount that CUC would collect on some of the said agencies was not released with Paraiso still needing to check their respective billing statements. In general, CUC still has a total of $37,889,323 to collect in unpaid utility bills from the CNMI government.
The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., based on CUC’s accounts receivables as of July 31, is on top of the list with $20,236,580 followed by the $7,017,085 from the CNMI central government. The CNMI Public School System has an outstanding balance of $5,389,616, but based on its memorandum of agreement with CUC only needs to pay $60,312.
Other government agencies owe CUC $5,246,042. CUC also has $4,279,092 to collect from its residential consumers, while commercial establishments have a balance of $3,936,588.
