For many years, all of us have realized that the CNMI has needed drastic economic changes, and yet, nothing has really been done to address the main reason behind the government shutdown: the ever shrinking CNMI economy. Nothing has been done because the politicians we have elected want to get re-elected, and they don’t believe the population wants real change. They believe the population wants the status quo. Hence, we are where we are: the pie keeps shrinking, and our besieged government is unable to keep thousands of government employees gainfully employed.
Article XII is still around, like an albatross around the economy. Because of it, local people cannot get loans to build houses, people from Japan, Guam, Korea, the mainland, etc., can’t buy houses. Developers of hotels and other tourism related concerns don’t reinvest in their properties because it will be only a matter of time before they need to deal with the CNMI government to extend their leases, and who knows what position the government will take and who will be in power at that time, and what his or her position would be. So what does that mean for tourism?
Well, the CNMI looks like a rundown cousin of Guam. Millions and millions of dollars are pouring into Guam real estate, creating jobs, government taxes, and we are left with their crumbs.
Doesn’t it strike anyone as strange that the casino initiative has been rejected several times, while at the same time poker parlors are everywhere? If we are serious about tourism, shouldn’t we be focusing on making sure that they leave a few dollars in the CNMI rather than the poor contract worker or locals who can’t even afford to be making any wagers? Let’s have it clear once and for all: either we support gaming or we don’t. But this “mestizo” arrangement doesn’t work for the tourists. When was the last time you saw a tourist in your neighborhood poker parlor?
Singapore, a city where you get arrested for chewing gum, opened two casinos, and now expects an extra 3 million tourists. And to discourage their own population from playing, they charge an entry fee of $80 just to get in if you can’t produce a foreign passport. Why can’t we do the same? And if the decision is to market the CNMI as a family friendly destination, we should close everything that even has a hint of impropriety from Garapan, and all over the island. We are either in the mold of Puerto Rico or the Bahamas with a thriving casino scene and nightlife, or we are Disneyland. But we can’t be a halfway house anymore.
Sadly, CUC is still government run; CDA, which is supposed to be aggressively wooing companies with incentives, is seemingly nonexistent; and a whole host of other legacy problems are not being dealt with aggressively for the betterment of the people. Change is scary. Change is difficult. But it is necessary.
In short, if we want to get the CNMI out of this mess, the population needs to send a clear message to our politicians that it is willing and eager to try out new things. Without that message, we will continue to fall further and further behind our neighbors, and the debates of 8-hour reductions, will turn into 24 or 32 hours or in the worse case, no work at all. No one wants it to come to that.
RICKY DELGADO
IT&E President/CEO
