ARRA money, he said has saved a lot of jobs in the commonwealth especially in the Public School System.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, available ARRA funds for the CNMI totaled $135.7 million of which $61.9 million were disbursed as of March 2011.
In an interview on Tuesday, Inos said the last date to obligate ARRA funding is Sept. 30.
He said ARRA money served its purpose “only to a certain extent” because of the restrictions in buying materials for construction and other ARRA projects.
So in most of the procurement, he added, the money actually goes elsewhere and did not circulate in the CNMI economy.
Because CNMI does not manufacture the goods used in many of the ARRA projects, Inos said, ”we turn around and buy the goods that are made in the U.S., therefore the ARRA money helped U.S. employment.
He added, “It does help us here in certain ways like installations and other services but the bulk of money goes to the infrastructure.”
Inos said he knows the purpose of ARRA is to create jobs nationwide and not in the territories like the CNMI.
“I mean we just piggybacked. It was never meant for us,” he added.
When ARRA projects proponent, for example, needed solar panels, they had to buy them from U.S. companies, thus creating jobs in the U.S., Inos said.
These are the issues with ARRA money, he added.
“For example we cannot take full management of funds by buying less expensive materials because they have to be U.S. made,” Inos said.
Sablan in a separate interview said more than 100 jobs including those of teachers were created in the CNMI with the help of ARRA funding.
However, he added “we are having a problem.” The GAO, Sablan said, pointed out that once ARRA is over, there will be CNMI jobs that will be affected and these are not only in the government but in the private sector as well.
Speaker Eli D. Cabrera, R-Saipan, said he cannot say if ARRA really helped the CNMI economy.
“I know a lot of people are still unemployed today,” he added.
He also noted that those who worked for ARRA projects were already employed.
According to the speaker, “ARRA just gave contractors here business. It did not create new jobs because these contractors already had employees and some of them were transferred from other employers.”
Despite the ARRA funding, the local economy is still hurting because of the uncertainties caused by immigration issues, Cabrera said.
“Everybody’s afraid because they don’t know what is going to happen with tourism, their employees’ contracts and how many they can retain or let go once the umbrella permits expire [this November],” he said.
All he knows, Cabrera added, was that ARRA created over 100 jobs in PSS. “When ARRA is done, what’s going to happen with these newly hired teachers?”
