was an e-mail sent directly to key administration officials who, on behalf of CUC, want to borrow millions of dollars from the bank. In other words, someone willing to do business with this administration has nothing good to say about the Aggreko contract. That’s how bad the deal is.
Yet if not for the Variety’s story about this “outrageous” contract, the administration would not have offered a more detailed explanation of why it wants to give $6 million of taxpayer money to Aggreko. The problem, according to CUC’s executive director, is that instead of working together to fix the island’s power crisis, “we are spending more time placing blame, bickering, criticizing, talking (and not listening), hindering, jumping to conclusions without the facts.”
But that’s not the problem. All this squabbling is merely the result of the administration’s failure to be transparent about the way it awards contracts. No one would have “jumped to conclusions” if the governor and CUC were providing the people with all the facts.
A state of emergency, moreover, is not an excuse for bad decisions. It is precisely during emergencies when decision-making should be more prudent and more thoughtful. Decisiveness, after all, is not impulsiveness. Hasty decision-making is not a substitute for good governance. In fact, ill-considered decisions are the cause of the current crisis, and making more of them is like throwing gasoline on a bonfire.
A state of emergency is not a license for larceny. CUC and the administration should comply with the procurement process. All CUC contracts should be awarded only after a thorough review by an independent panel of experts.
Otherwise, we should expect to see the same costly mistakes, over and over again.
THE speaker wants CUC to “disclose its plan of action” once the Aggreko contract expires. He also wants the bidding for the next CUC contract “done right.” He is saying all this after the passage of the bill allowing CUC to proceed with the questionable Aggreko deal. The bill was passed during back-to-back sessions last week. No public hearings. No thoughtful deliberations. Concerns were aired, only to be ignored.
Sadly for all of us, the Legislature and the executive branch like to enact laws quickly and worry about the consequences afterward. They shoot first and ask questions later — but if only someone raises a fuss. Otherwise, they keep on shooting.
Guess who they use for target practice.
THE administration says the feds should be blamed for the CNMI’s worsening economic problems. The culprit, says the administration, is the “uncertainty” stemming from the federalization of local minimum wage and immigration laws.
But this “uncertainty” has been dangling on the CNMI’s head since the Reagan administration. And it is the policies favored by the administration — low wages, crony capitalism, sweatshop factories and lobbying a la Jack Abramoff — that led to the full implementation of the Covenant.
This administration has nothing to offer but more of the same failed policies of the past. Even its excuses for its abysmal failures are old and tired.
