GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios said he is seeking opportunities, including federal assistance, to help small businesses in the CNMI.
“We want to see our small businesses and medium-sized or even large businesses thrive,” the governor told reporters during a press conference on Thursday last week.
“In regards to small businesses, I really believe that we need to help them,” he added. “Maybe it’s kind of an unorthodox approach, but I’m seeking opportunities that we can.”
He said he will talk to the board members of the Commonwealth Economic Development Authority “to see what we have in the agency that could help, and if there’s any restrictions in the statute or their own regulations, we should make…adjustments.”
He said they can “get a program together and engage more with our folks in Washington, D.C.”
When he returns to the nation’s capital this month, and even before he leaves the island, Palacios said he will submit “some official documents” to the CNMI delegate, Kimberlyn King-Hinds, and other members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I’m trying to look at other opportunities in federal programs to assist us in economic recovery and that is one of the key elements that when I go back [to D.C.] in February, I’m going to work hard to try to talk to our delegate to see what kind of immediate funding we can get…specifically for small businesses,” the governor said.
He added that he will remind them that the CNMI is at “the forefront of national defense,” and he will tell U.S. lawmakers that “we, the Commonwealth, want to help you.”
If the U.S. Congress wants a “more specific ask” from him, he said “that’s what we are going to do — ask for some assistance to weather the storm for our small businesses here.”
Since early 2023, the governor has been asking the federal government to provide more assistance to the CNMI in light of his decision to “pivot away” from the China tourism market, “which comprised more than 50% of our tourism base, or about 200,000 visitors (pre-pandemic).”
Last week, the governor said he wishes the CNMI government had $50 million, which he would invest in economic development and small businesses on the islands.
“But we are working. That’s one of the key elements of the 902 talks — economic assistance to all our existing businesses,” he said.
Palacios said he does not want to go back in time, but “had we done the BOOST program properly, and put in $50 million to help…small and medium-sized businesses or even big businesses, to weather the storm, we would have been in a much better position.”
“With all seriousness,” he said, “if we have done all those things right, the $17 million [in BOOST funds] for the whole Commonwealth probably [was] not enough. We could [have] put more into the program, but unfortunately, it morphed into something that was not…and I think you all acknowledge that fact, and so [did] everybody in this community. It would have been really a boost had we done it right.”
“And you all know it,” he added, “that was a lost opportunity for all of us, and I’m not going to point fingers on anything, I’m just going to point fingers on what we did wrong collectively as a community,” said Palacios, who served as lt. governor in the previous administration.
A program implemented by then-Gov. Ralph DLG Torres’ administration, BOOST means Building Optimism, Opportunities, and Stability Together. It was funded by $17 million in American Rescue Plan Act monies.
The CNMI House investigated the matter from 2022 to 2024 for alleged irregularities. So far, only one former BOOST contractor, businessman Shayne Villanueva, has been charged — but it was for contempt of the Legislature, an offense for which he was later acquitted by the Superior Court.
