Dela Cruz said “the economy of the CNMI has taken a ‘dive’ for at least five years now, and rather than improving, the recession we have been in has actually gotten worse.”
“What do we have to sell here? We need to sell stuff to get the economy rolling but there is a dearth of entrepreneurs,” he said.
For example, it is a “challenge,” he noted, to find a plumber on island.
Dela Cruz said if the CNMI will train at least 10 local plumbers a year, there will be 30 plumbers in three years.
“If we have not done it before, let’s do it now,” he added.
Dela Cruz said the past decade has been a very trying one for everyone in the CNMI.
“Unless the leaders of the CNMI are able to turn around this treacherous economic recession that we have been in, we would soon find ourselves failing at the opportunity to govern ourselves,” he added.
“We cannot, and we should not allow such an eventuality to happen, a mere 30 years after we began our journey in self-government,” Dela Cruz said.
His book is titled “From Colonialism to Self-Government: The Northern Marianas Experience.”
