The Legislature will now attempt to fix these consequences by repealing the law it mindlessly passed, but the real damage has already been done.
The CNMI’s reputation in the financial market has been hurt by this cavalier approach to upend the confidence that must exist between its advisors and the Fund. P.L. 17-51 follows in a long line of official actions that have hurt the reputation of the CNMI abroad.
No doubt some financial advisors in various locations have abused their clients’ trust, but there is no evidence that such is the case in this jurisdiction. But there is the matter of continually appointing as Fund trustees political supporters who have no experience or talent for discernment in financial matters. Voters bear some responsibility for the current state of affairs.
The question for lawmakers and retirees now is not how to rescue the Fund, which has reached the point of no return, but how to model a dissolution that ensures the fairest distribution of assets. The Fund sued the central government to collect amounts owed and then sat and waited, almost as though the filing satisfied its fiduciary requirement to “just do something.” The court waited, too, for years, and then ordered the sale of Marianas House in Washington, D.C. as its own way of “doing something.”
Even though there had been various presentations that charted the Fund’s inevitable demise, government officials declined to see the facts, choosing instead some fanciful wish that the consequences of the poor decisions they had made in the interest of politics could be sustained “somehow” down the road.
This administration, to be sure, should be faulted for nonpayment of the Fund, but it was merely following the course set by two administrations that preceded it. Now under a governor who can no longer seek another term, this administration apparently will not even attempt to satisfy the government’s obligation and will leave the Fund to its own fate.
There are, in any case, ways to protect the most vulnerable members of the Fund and ensure continued payment to its oldest members, but only at substantially reduced rates. In order to avert catastrophe, sacrifices will be required and a different course of action must be adopted.
Now what
THE new federal regulations are in place and lo and behold, domestic workers, agricultural and fisheries categories are excluded from entry to the CNMI, even as foreigners find full employment in these categories in the states.
The very well that gives a lot of guest workers a livelihood has been poisoned. So this group of employees will soon board a plane and return to a country that exports labor as its chief source of hard currency. Misery now looms for hundreds if not thousands of people who have made the CNMI their home for decades.
