What is this?

Just some random musings .

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Time and The Place

Change begins:

Wednesday
September 17, 5:30PM
the Garapan Fishing Base.

Help end this madness.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

How Did We Get Here (Sitting in the Dark)

Why are we in this situation?

Some have said it is due to the fact that we paid far below what we should have been paying for all those years we were charged 11 cents/KWH.

I do believe that the rate was far to low to have full cost recovery, however I do not believe that is the reason we are in the dark now.

We are sitting in the dark because the generators are broken. They are inoperable. While some may argue that they are in that state due to the lack of proper rate setting in the past, I don't buy it.

Mismanagement and Corruption are the root of our problems.

How so?

In the last 24 months CUC has spent at a minimum $16 Million dollars in REPAIR and PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE either fully or partially federally funded. They have also transferred $4.7 Million from CDA, took $5 million from the Gen Fund, Took $5 Million from Ret Fund contributions and raised fees and this does not include any fully locally funded repair and maintenance contracts. And this is nothing new. CUC spends millions every year on Repair and Maintenance. Why then are the generators all broken down? If we have been paying these large sums of money to CISCO, DCM, MAN B&W, SNM, TANO GROUP, MITSUBISHI, WAUKESHA ELECTRICAL, PACIFIC DRILLING, HAWTHORNE PACIFIC and many others why are all but 2 of the generators run by CUC broken and out of commission?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Here is a listing of only the SOLE SOURCED FEDERALLY FUNDED contracts from 2008: Waukesha Electrical$180,159.18 for corrective maintenance;
Waukesha Electrical-$64,580.37 for Kiya Sub corrective maintenance;
Waukesha Electrical-$124,221.79 for repair of T-1 transformer at Chalan Kiya;
Pacific Drilling Ltd.-$117,745 for emergency repair and construction of Chalan Kiya 8-inch asbestos broken sewerline;
Mitsubishi Corp. -$475,908 for preventive maintenance;
Mitsubishi Corp.-$74,737.20 for power generation;
Mitsubishi Corp.-$74,737.20 for 12,000 running hours preventive maintenance;
Mitsubishi Corp.- $117,040 for preventive maintenance;
Man B&W Singapore-$455,904 for installation of new crankshaft;
Man B&W Singapore-$281,362 for preventive maintenance;
Man B&W Singapore-$831,959 for preventive maintenance service;
Man B&W-$582,963 for preventive maintenance service;
CISCO-$115,000 for assessment & repair of generator stater for power plant 1 generator;
SNM Corp. — no amount indicated, hired to overhaul three existing generators;
Hawthorne Pacific-$87,713.21 for top end overhaul of caterpillar generator;
Tano Group Inc. — no amount indicated;
Tano Group Inc.- $287,000 for removal of used oil in tank 104;
Tano Group Inc.-$65,500 for shipment of 1.5MW generator for Rota;
CBM Tech-$826,980 for supply of radiators;
Sai Traders-$404,900 for supply and installation of lube oil separator;
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If all this money was truly spent on Preventive Maintenance and Repair and all but 2 of our generators are broken then perhaps we didn’t get what we paid for. Did this money go to repairs? Did it go to preventive maintenance? Or were these sole sourced and manipulated bid contracts signed and executed merely to funnel monies into corrupt pockets?

It happened with Tim and Rydlyme (which for some reason doesn’t show up on any of the reports I have seen… not exactly full disclosure). It is not far fetched to reach the conclusion that some BIG TIME corruption is occurring at CUC. Either that or big time mismanagement (which I find hard to believe).

We are in this mess because these repairs and maintenance did not occur or if they did were not done right.

I hope the legislature does its job and conducts a full oversight of CUC and looks into all of their contracts. There is no reason we should be in the situation we are in. The money was there for repair and maintenance. The money has been spent year after year. Who’s pockets?

ENOUGH!