“WHEN you have a disaster, projections don’t matter,” Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said when asked if the CNMI’s projected fiscal year 2023 funds could sustain government activities in the event of another disaster.
He said he will “do everything” to respond to a disaster and ensure the people’s safety.
“If I need to [incur] another deficit to safeguard every person that calls the CNMI home, I will do that, the same way I did [in the aftermath of Super Typhoon] Yutu [and] with the [Covid-19] pandemic,” he added.
“When [another] disaster comes, one thing I am confident [of], because of the experiences that I’ve had and the relationship that I have with federal partners, [is] that we will recover 10 times faster because I have been down this road before,” he said.
In a previous interview, Secretary of Finance David DLG Atalig said that as of the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2022, the CNMI had incurred an $11 million deficit due to Covid-19 expenditures.
“As we move into a [new] fiscal year…we do our best to pay back and take care of outstanding invoices and expenditures from the previous fiscal years,” Atalig said. “We still are in a pandemic, and we are learning how to live with [Covid-19], but it doesn’t end the efforts that we are [making] to [stay Covid-19]-free.”
He added, “We’re pretty excited about getting our financials to a better state as we continue to move away from all the support we’ve received from the federal government. That’s been the plan. We work hard to try to ensure that we have a good return on our investment with the programs that we do with the [American Rescue Plan Act] funds,” he said.
“We are on track, and we are doing really well, as we expected, because of the infusion of a lot of our [ARPA] funds,” he added.
In terms of revenue, Atalig said the main driver has been the wage and salary tax collections, noting that the ARPA funds allowed the government to restore the 20% austerity cut as well as hire more people.
“Going forward, we still try to be very conscious of our spending and try to prolong and utilize what ARPA funds we have today,” he said.
Fiscal year 2023 began on Saturday, Oct. 1.
