PACIFIC Anchor, a fish dealer, applied for a Building Optimism, Opportunities and Stability Together or BOOST program grant on Aug. 18, 2022, but has yet to be informed whether its $75,000 application has been approved or rejected.
One of the co-owners of Pacific Anchor, a family business, was Elpidio Corpuz, 71, who died on March 30, 2020 at Kanoa Resort. He was the first recorded fatality related to the Covid-19 pandemic in the CNMI.
In an interview on Monday, Corpuz’s son, Manny, said after his father died, the CNMI government did not allow them to reopen. He said everyone in their family and company was also quarantined for three months.
Manny said their business is still struggling. “My father was known to almost everyone here on island, and they know he died of Covid.”
Elpidio Corpuz’s widow, Luz, noted that the BOOST applications of other businesses that did not exist during the Covid-19 pandemic have already been approved.
House hearing
On Friday, the first day of the hearing conducted by House Committees on Judiciary and Governmental Operations and Ways and Means on the BOOST program, Rep. Edwin Propst asked the governor’s chief of staff, Wil Castro, what assistance was provided to small businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Castro, who is one of the three members of the BOOST review panel, said he was appointed as chief of staff in September 2021 so he was not aware of any other assistance to small businesses besides BOOST.
Propst said BOOST was supposed to help small businesses that shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, he added, many of them have not received anything from the BOOST program while some new businesses received “staggering amounts.”
“So we can understand why a lot of people are upset. There is a great deal of frustration from legitimate businesses that closed down during Covid and have not gotten a penny,” Propst said.
Rep. Celina Babauta, the House JGO chair, told Castro that the BOOST program was supposed to be for the businesses established before Oct. 1, 2019. Now, she said, “we have a flurry of new businesses created immediately prior to the BOOST Nov. 18 application deadline. What changed? Why was that regulation not in place at the time you executed this program?” she asked Castro.
“By ‘you’ you mean the BOOST program,” Castro replied.
“The people involved, I’m sorry, it’s not meant for you personally,” Babauta said.
According to Castro, the administration’s “priority has been to diversify the economy, and everyone at the table took that into consideration to allow new operations [to get a] foothold in the community….”
“Based on my recollection,” he added, “there [are] more existing businesses” than new businesses that have received awards.
