Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, right, and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang conduct a press conference at the governor’s office on Monday.
GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios said he had a “robust, very honest, straight up and cut-the-nonsense” meeting with officials and staff of the Office of Planning and Development, the Department of Public Works and other executive branch agencies. He said he urged them to move forward with federally funded infrastructure projects.
In a press conference on Monday, the governor said, “We are working very hard to get our infrastructure projects going.”
During a meeting with OPD, DPW and other executive branch agencies last week, the governor said he was provided the status of all the projects funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration and other federal agencies. Some are moving, he said, others are slowly moving, and the rest are already in the design stage.
He said those that are already moving include the Garapan revitalization, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. sewer line and the Beach Road improvement projects.
“I’m very happy that Northern Marianas College faced all the obstacles that were thrown at them,” he said, adding that members of the community are really glad to see that the college is moving forward with the construction of its new campus.
The governor said he told the responsible agencies that the CNMI cannot afford a delay in the completion of infrastructure projects. “We look forward to getting all these things done,” he added.
“And I was very clear to the staff of OPD and DPW that I do not want to see any more delays,” he reiterated.
He said he was also happy that the close to $30 million Beach Road improvement project is moving, and that U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan was able to include a provision in a recent appropriation bill that would provide the CNMI with additional funds for highway projects.
“That’s really good news. We are working hard to make sure that these things continue to happen…and not delayed,” the governor said.
“We are kind of lagging behind [in some projects], to tell you the truth,” he added. But in the meeting with the agencies, he said he stressed that “these things got to move.”
In February, the governor told the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources that some of the CNMI’s federally funded projects “have encountered significant hurdles in execution, ranging from limited local capacity and labor shortages, to cumbersome federal environmental review process, rigid deadlines, and inflexible grants that do not take into account costs that have skyrocketed from the time that projects were approved for funding.”
