Close to 20 people attended the public hearing on House Bill 17-164 which will transform CUC into the Northern Marianas Utility Corp. whose owners are people of Northern Marianas Descent.
Vice Speaker Felicidad T. Ogumoro, Covenant-Saipan, is the bill’s author.
CUC Executive Director Abe Utu Malae said he supports the bill’s intent but he questions the “assumptions” regarding NMUC’s profitability.
The Commonwealth Development Authority, for its part, noted that it has financial interests in CUC.
CDA said once the bill is enacted into law the financial viability of the new entity, NMUC, will be questionable.
CDA also questioned the legality of using capital improvement project funds, which are from the federal government, for NMUC.
The Marianas Public Land Trust already noted that Public Law 17-7 already obligates the interest income from MPLT so it cannot be used for NMUC as proposed by the bill.
P.L. 17-7 appropriates MPLT’s $4 million future earnings to the general fund.
Frederick Prosser, a former CUC official, said a cooperative and not a corporation is the way to go.
He said the bill does not provide for capital or adequate personnel. He also questioned the legality of the measure’s intent.
Prosser at the same time criticized the present management of CUC for the decisions it made in the last several years.
Malae responded by saying that Prosser was with CUC “when all those things happened, so what did he do to address them?”
Commonwealth Retirement Association president Juan M. Sablan said he is in favor of Prosser’s idea to make CUC a cooperative.
But CUC, he added, needs to have a desk audit.
