BST Associates, CPA’s seaport bond consultant, will be on island on Monday to conduct a seaport rate study that will be the basis of the new, higher rates.
CPA’s airport bond consultant Ricondo & Associates has recommended a similar rate increase for the airport fees in light of the agency’s 60 percent decline in revenue.
The board’s seaports facilities committee chairman, Benigno M. Sablan, said “since everything has gone up and [our rates] haven’t…we should be looking at increasing them. This is the only way, I believe, the only option to generate new revenues at the seaport.”
But he added that CPA will also look into the concerns of the seaport’s stakeholders.
“Diplomatically, we will sit down with them and share with them that CPA is in dire need of increasing revenues,” he said. “We will ask them to submit to us what are ‘good’ and ‘not good’ rates so we may consider their concerns because we don’t want them to shut down operation due to this rate increase.”
Sablan said the consumers will “understand” the rate increase.
CPA, he added, will also consider other ways to bring in “new money” for the seaport.
The mining of pozzolan on Pagan can be a new seaport activity, he added.
“For our airports, there may be new flights coming in, but for our seaport…there’s nothing going out,” Sablan said.
According to CPA’s fiscal year 2007 audit report, the seaport inbound cargo in terms of revenue tonnage dropped by 16 percent or 97,354 revenue tons due to the closure of several garment factories and a decline in orders for inbound commodities.
The seaport’s outbound cargo also declined by 13 percent, or 15,990 revenue tons.
