The newly elected governor promised “Better Times”: protection of the Covenant, new investors, economic recovery, lower power rates — none of which materialized. In the past four years, the CNMI lost control over immigration and minimum wage, a lot of businesses folded up, tourism numbers continue to slide, the government’s accumulated deficit continues to rise, power rates are high, CUC is still under a state of emergency and is now running out of fuel, the government’s debt to the Retirement Fund is still ballooning and this dismal list goes on. And on.
This administration is a colossal failure. The only people defending it are its political hires, political opportunists, including those from the so-called opposition, and politically connected businesses. Unfortunately, they and their families constituted 51 percent of the voters in the runoff last November, which is a sad commentary on how extensive the reach of the government is, and how dependent residents are on its jobs and contracts.
Almost halfway through the year, we now realize what the governor’s catchy campaign slogan “Let it BE” really means: Let it be worse.
According to Interior’s report to the U.S. Congress, the CNMI’s total business gross revenues last year plunged by some 59 percent compared to 1997 figures. “There appears to be no economy in the Pacific that has experienced this extreme degree of business expansion and subsequent contraction since the Asian financial crisis of the mid-1990s shook Asian markets,” the report noted.
That part of Interior’s report was never disputed by the administration. In fact, the governor himself admitted to the Bordallo subcommittee recently that the CNMI’s economic depression is “serious.” (As if other economic depressions are, what, whimsical?) “Our people,” the governor said, “continue to suffer and…no signs of economic recovery are apparent after five years.”
But although the administration has been in charge since Jan. 2006, it still blames everything and everyone else but its own mismanagement and incompetence for the CNMI’s worsening condition.
The governor, moreover, has broken almost every single campaign pledge he made to the voters of the CNMI, and his actions since his re-election are an embarrassment to the good people of these islands: massage-gate, awarding fat contracts to ex-felons and hiring more political hires while imposing paycuts on ordinary government workers and punishing and bullying “disloyal” employees and companies.
I’m not saying all this because I “hate” the governor. As anyone who has met him in person will tell you, he is kind, charming, funny and likeable. As a politician, he is the shrewdest of them all. But as a chief executive, the governor is a disaster.
The Legislature, however, will never impeach him. A recall petition, for its part, has to be signed by 40 percent of the voters (or 5,414 based on the 13,536 votes cast for governor in the November general elections), and approved by at least two-thirds of the voters (9,069). As the economy continues to sink, who will risk their or their relatives’ jobs/contracts by signing such a petition that will have to be reviewed by the governor’s AG? The administration has shown us what can happen to those who do not toe the line. Not surprisingly, even those who abhor this administration can only criticize it online and anonymously.
As long as voters refuse to stand up and demand better leadership from the officials they elected into office all we can do is to pray and hope that the governor will finally stop charging at the federal windmills and focus instead on what has to be done here in the CNMI to prevent the looming catastrophe.
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