by Lannie Walker

Guam - The Guam Waterworks Authority will still have to repay $20 million to the General Fund, but it won't be from its recently secured $118 million bond for capital improvement projects. Administrative Law Judge David Mair ruled that the utility agency had to follow through with local law and reimburse the General Fund with its recent bond.

GWA and the Consolidated Commission on Utilities, however, argued it would violate their bond agreements because the proceeds are strictly to be used for CIPs and petitioned the Public Utilities Commission to reject the ALJ's recommendation. According to CCY chairperson Simon Sanchez, Mair changed his recommendation, which the PUC adopted.

He said, "So he asked the PUC to table his report and recommendation and he recommended that GWA and him get together and so the PUC agreed and they asked that the ALJ and GWA get together to write up a stipulated order in which GWA agrees to borrow the money as required by law and we will go through the process to borrow that money."

GWA will borrow an additional $20 million with repayment to be secured from a 4-8% rate increase.