Muna was referring to Michael C. Sammartino, the Business Development Independence Bank director.
Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr., for his part, said the governor is not associated with any of the firms awarded contracts by CUC.
According to Muna, in an e-mail to Taotao Tano’s Greg Cruz, “If Sammartino really cared about the CNMI, he would offer a direct loan to CUC to finance the completion of repairs of at least 4 engines at PP1. If we finish repairs on two large Generators at 11-MW each and two smaller ones at 6-MW each then for 10-MM we get 34-MW. 34-MW each is a lot more than 15-MW as I understand it.”
Cruz said other companies should have been allowed to submit bids for the contract that CUC awarded to Aggreko.
But Muna said under the Aggreko contract, “all costs were up front and CUC will have the generators online in 36 days.”
Sammartino, Muna added, offered to charge CUC $80,000 a month but provided no other details about other costs.
“Does Sammartino care about the other costs? No — his job is to make the loan and sell the generator. After he sells it to CUC, I have to take care of the rest,” Muna told Cruz.
Instead of working together to fix CUC’s problem, Muna added, “we are spending more time placing blame, bickering, criticizing, talking (and not listening), hindering, jumping to conclusions without the facts.”
Cruz said CUC’s problems are caused by “mismanagement, extortion, lack of experienced, qualified and certified mechanics, lack of personnel, self-interest, costly sole-source contracts, illegal procurement practices and other costly mistakes.”
Muna said he will “continue to do my part as I know so professionally and as long as the governor needs me. When there is a new governor, my resignation will be one of the first on his desk.”
He said the Fitial administration has been trying to fix the utilities system that was already “broke and broken by the time they got into office.”
In an e-mail, Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said the administration cannot approve the purchase of new generators that “may later not be properly maintained” just like in the past.
He said the administration already has prepared a plan to solve CUC’s problems.
“At the moment, the plan is to bring in temporary power capacity so that we can fully repair our existing capital assets, which would later be operated by independent power providers with much greater efficiency,” Reyes added.
Muna said the problem “lies not in the purchase of new engines but in maintaining them.”
CUC’s long-term plan is to execute an emergency request for proposal to complete the overhaul of Power Plant 1’s engines 5 and 7.
“Engines 5 and 7 overhauls are required as insurance [if an RFP for an independent power provider for CUC will not be acquired] so we can terminate Aggreko contract in 12 months without having loss of power production to meet current demand,” Muna said.
He said they will eventually announce an RFP for power firms to take over the rehabilitation of Power Plant 1 engines and provide power to the island.
According to Reyes, the privatization of CUC operations is also included in the governor’s plan.
