Vince “Kobre” Aldan
REPRESENTATIVE Vincent “Kobre” S. Aldan said the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and other autonomous agencies should be able to hire their own legal counsel, instead of depending on the Office of the Attorney General.
He said it’s a conflict of interest when two government agencies engaged in a legal dispute are both represented by the AG.
“They might say there’s no conflict of interest, but history has shown otherwise,” he said.
The chair of the House Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications Committee, Aldan and its members held a media conference on Tuesday to discuss issues pertaining to the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., specifically its Fuel Adjustment Charge or FAC.
Aldan noted that as of March 31, 2023, the CNMI government owed CUC $66.37 million.
Among CUC’s largest delinquent customers are the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. which owes $53.58 million; the central government, $8.9 million; the Commonwealth Ports Authority, $2.2 million; and the Department of Public Works, $1.1 million.
Aldan also mentioned the summary of a 2017 Office of the Public Auditor’s report which stated: “CUC has not achieved its purpose to operate as an independent public agency with the legal and political independence to perform as a non-subsidized autonomous operation due to interference by some of the past legislatures, various governors and board of directors throughout the history of CUC.”
“No other CNMI autonomous agency has experienced this degree of legislative and executive branch interference,” the OPA report added.
It stated that lawmakers have passed rate and fee reductions while governors exerted undue influence on the CUC board even though the central government is both a major consumer and the largest debtor of CUC.
In a meeting with House members in July 2022, amid an increase in the Fuel Adjustment Charge, CUC Deputy Executive Director Chretien Voerg told lawmakers that FAC is the rate CUC has to pay to its fuel supplier so it can run the power plants that generate electricity for its customers.
Whenever fuel prices go up, he added, the FAC also rises.
He also reminded lawmakers that the “issue right now is funding and we have outstanding accounts that had not been paid and…they add up to…tens of millions of dollars,” referring to the government’s failure to make timely payments to CUC.
