10-27-06

Hi friends, this is Harry Blalock; General Manager for radio stations KZMI & KCNM. It's that time once again to take a look at the issues of the week, and to offer some Food For Thought.

I know that the situation looks very bleak to a lot of people in the CNMI right now. It's true that things are very tough for everybody, and it's also true that we have not yet hit the bottom. Things are probably going to get worse for the next couple years before we see any improvement in the economy or our standard of living. Because of this, many people are leaving, life long residents are deciding that things have to be better in the states, and are venturing out to leave their home island and start a new life elsewhere. Businesses are closing down and relocating to Guam, or elsewhere because their profit margins have completely disappeared in recent months. I'm not going to lie to you, it's a very scary time to be living here and trying to survive in business. Anyone who tells you differently is not being honest with himself or herself, or you.

But believe it or not, even in times like these, or maybe especially in times like these, there are also some very unique opportunities. But they might not be opportunities, as you would typically think of opportunities. We have the chance now to take control of some things that have gone very wrong, and start fixing a broken system that hasn't worked properly for many, many years, if ever.

There are numerous examples of things that may have been set up with good intentions, but have been widely abused because of greed and corruption. You can start with a look at the many government boards over the years. The boards were set up to protect and oversee the various agencies, making sure that they were run properly and that the public interest was protected. Unfortunately, in many cases, the very ones who were put on those boards to protect us were the very ones we really needed to be protected from. There are many examples of those who abused their positions on the various boards. There are the Tinian Gaming Commission members who misused hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel and other perks, and still haven't paid it back. Fermin Atalig misusing his government issued credit card when he was a member of the Marianas Public Lands board (a debt which continues to escalate at a rapid rate because of the interest, by the way). Anna Demapan Castro and her long list of abuses as the chair of the M.P.L.A. board, for which we're also still waiting to see if there will ever by any prosecution. The list just goes on and on, and the Public Auditors Annual Report continues to remind us of the abuses in the past, and the fact that the vast majority of them have never been made right or prosecuted.

This is one area that I do have to give credit to the current administration for. Governor Fitial realized that these boards were nothing more than opportunities for a bunch of people who were morally and ethically challenged to take advantage of a system without any built in accountability for those charged with safeguarding our assets. He disbanded the M.P.L.A. board and reorganized the agency, and has done the same to numerous other boards and agencies. I realize there are those who are critical of these decisions and claim it just gives the Governor more opportunity to exert political influence, but I'll take this system to the way things were working any day of the week. And just for the record, most of those objecting were the ones who lost all their perks and the opportunity to give their friends and relatives lucrative contracts, and to travel the world on the government's dime. But fixing all those dysfunctional boards is one of the opportunities that has presented itself lately, because we realize that we simply can't afford that kind of waste and abuse any longer.

We also have the opportunity to change the way our legislature operates and the quality of candidates who are willing to run for office. Many people are very disgusted by legislators who are willing to cut everyone else's pay by implementing an austerity holiday, and who also take the day off, but aren't willing to then cut their own salaries. Yes, there have been a few who have been willing to take a 10% cut in their pay, but they are still in the minority, the vast majority of lawmakers don't think they should have to take the same pay cut they forced most of you to take. Because of this, most people are finally beginning to realize that the lawmakers we currently have are there for the money and their own self interests, and really aren't concerned about the overall welfare of the CNMI. You will be seeing a petition drive next year seeking to get enough signatures to put a part time legislature question on the next ballot. It will give you the opportunity to revamp a system that hasn't worked for years. We keep getting legislators who have no clue how to fix anything, but that doesn't stop them from passing laws left and right, most of which wind up being scrapped or totally revamped because they are just not practical. We will soon have the opportunity to force the issue and to place it on the ballot. It would be nice if the legislature itself would just listen to the people and put it on the ballot themselves, but that would mean giving up the most lucrative job most of them have ever had, and they're not about to do that.

We have the opportunity to start training our local students and getting them prepared to enter the working world. It is no secret that the majority of our students won't be going to college; therefore it becomes very important that we properly prepare them to get a job in which they can support themselves after finishing school. We have the different high schools open now, and we could have each of them focus on different vocational training, which would help prepare these students to successfully enter the job market and replace contract workers. The concept is nothing new, it's why we have the different high schools, that's what they were initially intended for, but somewhere we got sidetracked and never implemented the concept. The opportunity to properly prepare our students for a successful career is right in front of us, it is just up to us to do something about it and actually make it happen now.

We also have the opportunity to get serious about plugging local workers into the workforce and replacing contract workers who were only intended to be temporary in the first place. This will require the government to get serious about some sort of wage reform that would ensure that certain types of jobs must pay a certain minimum wage that would be appropriate with the type of skills and experience necessary for that job. For instance, you will never have local workers willing to go to the trouble of becoming an electrician or a plumber as long as businesses can just hire contract workers in those positions for $3-$4 an hour. Those are highly skilled positions that should pay more than a cash register clerk, or a janitor, but in our ridiculous situation, they all seem to pay about the same. The opportunity is there to finally change this, and create a whole new set of jobs for our local people, but the government is going to have to take the lead on this one and ensure that those jobs pay enough to entice locals workers. This could be done through a disincentive tax or a certain minimum salary scale if they want an exemption to hire a contract worker for that position. But let's be honest for a minute here, everyone here has benefited from having access to very cheap labor for almost any position, but that benefit is also what is keeping our local people in the unemployment lines, unable to make enough money at those jobs to support a family. We can finally do something about unemployment of our local people, but it's going to take our government waking up and realizing that we need to take care of our people first, not just themselves.

We have the opportunity to finally really fix our electric utility problem. We have suffered through years of mismanagement and corruption at Commonwealth Utilities Corporation. That government agency has a long and notorious past, with plenty of blame to go around. Yes, we are finally in a crisis situation now, one that is affecting every single person on this island. But again, with this latest disaster comes an opportunity. An opportunity to completely overhaul the way this agency runs and operates. One of the proposals on the table is to fully privatize the utility, let a private company bid on the right to install new generators and operate them for the next 20-40 years. It is also possible that the government could float bonds and purchase the new generators themselves, and then hire a company to operate and maintain them for us, since we have proven ourselves to be ineffective at doing that over the years. The point is, the crisis situation has provided the opportunity for much needed change and the chance to finally fix our power problems. Will we make the most of this opportunity, or will we continue to defeat the process before it even has a chance to get off the ground by requiring the company to not only buy and install the new generators, but to also pay $22.5 million for the old generators that all need to just be replaced? Did we bother to ask any of the energy companies if our new law about requiring certain percentages of renewable energy each year is practical or feasible? Or is that just going to be one more obstacle that prevents us from moving forward and getting the new, more efficient generators we so badly need? The opportunity to have cheaper, more reliable power is right there, almost within our grasp, but will we shoot ourselves in the foot and stop the process before it even gets started?

Yes, I believe there are many opportunities all around us at the moment, but none of them are going to just magically happen all by themselves. They will all take a certain amount of hard work and planning, and putting the best interest of the CNMI first. We need to either seize the opportunities we have, or understand when even our own people feel that their best opportunities are elsewhere.

I'm Harry Blalock, thanking you once again for giving me a generous slice of your valuable time, and allowing me to share my Food For Thought.