This was the opinion of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce as it submitted its comments to the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission on April 15.
Douglas T. Brennan, chamber president, told CPUC Chairwoman Viola Alepuyo in a letter that their group “maintains that CNMI power and water utility consumers would be better served by the privatization of CUC.”
The chamber, Brennan said, believes that privatization should be a priority as opposed to current short-term focus on maintaining ever increasing costs to consumers to avoid solvency concerns.
The chamber also expressed its objection to any overall increased rates for businesses and residents of the CNMI as a “further burden on all consumers, based upon comparative rates, faulty testimony presented to CPUC by CUC’s rate consultants and as SCC’s own comparative analysis of CUC’s current operational practices indicate.”
The chamber objects to the proposed standby service charge that would be applied to large self-generating commercial users.
As a result of CUC’s past inability to accommodate large commercial users, Brennan wrote, many businesses at considerable expense installed their own generating capacity to support CUC’s power grid shortfall.
Should the proposal gets approved, Brennan said, the consumers should have the costs of those investments returned to them through amortization or by offsetting future utility payments.
The chamber said private and business consumers already face electric utility rates higher than almost anywhere in U.S. jurisdiction.
“Neighboring Guam customers pay a per kwh rate of 21 cents per hour while CUC is proposing a cumulative rate of 36 to 40 cents for its customers.
[Guam’s] CUC burns a much more expensive Low Sulfur diesel oil (LSADO, Number 2 Diesel Fuel), adding costs CUC needs to recover, which coincidentally is the basis for the proposed increased rates.”
The chamber described CUC’s collection accounts as “in horrible arrears.”
The business group also strongly opposes any increased rates to offset uncollected accounts “until such time as those outstanding private and government accounts are retired.”
The chamber said CUC should conduct an audit of its personnel and equipment to streamline operations and more efficiently provide dependable power supply, while decreasing costs that are passed onto its consumers.
The chamber said better use of “millions of dollars in ‘State Energy Programs’ and ‘Energy Efficient Conservation Block Grants’ ” should have eliminated the need to increase consumer rates.
