Sablan, the chairwoman of the Saipan legislative delegation’s public utilities committee, earlier disclosed that CUC had not replied to the warning letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA reminded CUC that its failure to comply with two federal stipulated orders concerning environmental violations was troubling and would cost the CNMI cash-strapped government about $634,000 in penalties.
“I was hired to fix the problem. You, unfortunately, despite your best intentions, are part of the problem. CUC is doing its best to comply and reversing years of being out of compliance,” Muna told Sablan in a letter.
The lawmaker, for her part, said it was CUC that failed to deliver the deliverables set in the stipulated orders despite the numerous notices of violations and administrative orders issued over the years by the EPA and the CNMI Division of Environmental Quality.
“The entire history of CUC is a story of progress in fits and starts — one step forward, two steps back,” said Sablan when asked to comment on Muna’s letter.
Muna defended his record as CUC executive director since he was named to the post by Gov. Benigno R. Fitial on May 5, 2008.
Muna said CUC’s problems could be traced way back to May 1993.
He asked Sablan if she was really expecting that all of those areas of deficiency can be corrected by September this year while CUC was faced by a power generation crisis that was threatening a water and wastewater crisis.
Muna cited the following “accomplishments” of CUC: the full payment of the Aggreko lease contract, chlorine shipments, the payment of vendors who were unpaid for several years, the collapsing sewer lines that have been addressed, payments for water pumps, sewer pumps, fuel and independent power producers.
He said CUC was able to complete these payments without government subsidy since July 2008.
Regarding the hiring of a chief financial officer, Muna told Sablan that highly qualified individuals did not want the job without a substantial pay increase.
He denied that CUC lacks the accounting protocols to properly track billings and collections for the water, wastewater, and power divisions, saying they are billing customers for electric, water, and wastewater separately.
“Those revenues are being tracked. CUC is also keeping track of expenses separately. Protocols are there to track revenues and expenses,” he said.
“CUC is very mindful of protecting the health and welfare of the public and acting accordingly.”
CUC is not all to blame, he said, adding that governors, legislators, and boards have all had a hand in causing the agency’s demise.
But Fitial, he said, has been trying to turn things around since day one of his administration.
According to Sablan, the stipulated orders require an orderly step-by-step process of certain deliverables due by specific deadlines to ensure CUC’s full compliance with the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Act in the future.
But CUC, she added, has not delivered.
“The time for more excuses and more delay has passed,” she said.
She reiterated the need to place CUC under a federal court-appointed receivership.
“The problems of mismanagement and noncompliance at CUC are systemic and ruled by local politics, to the great detriment of public health, the environment, and the local economy. This has been true since CUC was first established in the 1980s. This continues to be true today,” she said.
She agreed that previous leaders and past CUC boards have all contributed to its collapse over the years.
Moreover, Sablan said, CUC since the very beginning has been led by executive directors who were not utility managers by profession and who were ruled more by politics than by their mandates to provide decent utility services to the public.
“For all the progress CUC has made in fits and starts, for all of Mr. Muna’s good intentions, we cannot put our blinders on when it comes to the role that he plays as a political appointee who is not a utility manager by profession and who answers to the governor. Nor can we put our blinders on when it comes to the role that the current administration has played in CUC’s collapse,” Sablan said.
She said CUC has been under a continuing state of emergency for nearly four straight years for an everexpanding list of reasons.
During this time, she noted, highly lucrative and highly questionable contracts have been awarded, from Rydlyme to DCM and Aggreko
CUC and Fitial have been promising to end the state of emergency, but it still continues, she added. “And as long as this governor is in power, I see no end in sight to the emergency.”
