The Northern Marianas Governor, Benigno Fitial, is urging the struggling utilities company, Commonwealth Utilities Corp's executive director Antonio Muna to pursue all past due accounts owed the utility company.
A recent report by Georgetown Consulting showed that CUC's accounts receivable totaled 31.2 million US dollars in the 2007 fiscal year, 9.6 million dollars of which came from government agencies.
In a statement, Mr Fitial said he wants Mr Muna to pursue all collections because the cash-strapped CNMI government, which has had to dramatically reduce its operating budget, is in no position to subsidize CUC operations.
According to the statement, Mr Muna has said the CNMI central government is now current in its utility payments, but is still waiting for the Public School System to pay more than $1 million in past utility usage fees.
Mr Fitial says at the end of the day, disconnection will not be up to CUC; it will have to be done by urgent necessity, as a result of actions taken by Mobil, Telesource, Aggreko, PMIC, and Shell- the CUC's suppliers.
