‘CUC employees must not divulge account information’

Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors vice chair Eric San Nicolas declined to respond to allegations that a recent policy change at CUC was intended to benefit himself, while emphasizing that he won’t tolerate CUC personnel divulging customers’ account information.
The issue stems from the new promissory note policy that he proposed and was ultimately approved by a 4-1 vote by the board during their special meeting last month. The new policy now authorizes the Tinian and Rota deputy directors to approve promissory notes for the islands.
San Nicolas, who is from Tinian, allegedly owes CUC in unpaid accounts but he declined to comment on this, instead voicing his concern for CUC employees who may be divulging customer information.

“I am not going to comment on amounts or whatever like that, but if that’s a common practice in CUC [divulging customer information], you better rest assured that I’m going to get to the bottom to make sure that’s addressed,” San Nicolas told Saipan Tribune. “I will not tolerate CUC employees divulging personal account information about me as a customer.”

San Nicolas reiterated that the new policy for promissory notes was intended to empower the deputy directors on Tinian and Rota and to better serve the islands’ residents. He also clarified that customer service managers on Saipan still have the authority for promissory notes but only for Saipan.
“Decentralizing certain things in CUC is good for the municipalities because each of the deputy directors down there on Tinian and Rota, they know the people,” San Nicolas. “Why have deputy directors if you can’t entrust them with that responsibility?”

“Even if I’m a customer involved in that same line, so what? I’m a customer,” he added.

San Nicolas said he is going to push for more decentralization in CUC as well as look at the disparity in salaries of CUC employees on the three islands.
“I was appointed to the CUC board of directors to protect the interest of the ratepayers [on] Tinian,” he said. “If I’m going to get criticized and labeled as corrupt for doing that, so be it.”

“If empowering deputy directors on Tinian with the authority that they should have in the beginning is corrupt, then yeah, I’m corrupt,” San Nicolas said. “If listening to my residents on Tinian and listening to their call because one head of household who works minimum wage cannot pay their bill and then after 60 days they get cut off unless they pay 100 percent and they have to sacrifice between food and power, if that is corrupt, then I am corrupt.”