Mounting deficit of NMI

The NMI Constitution mandates every administration to retire deficits by its second year in office. But with bleeding red ink from literally every budget spreadsheet these days, such a mandate would be next to impossible to fulfill.

The local government is saddled with a deficit of more than $40 million in unpaid bills going as far back as two administrations. The economic contraction that started here more than two years ago–and still continuing to assault what’s left of the local economy–doesn’t offer much hope that the local government could meet retirement of mounting deficit and still stay solvent over the next several fiscal years.

What aggravated the worsening condition was the apparent lack of concern and sense of responsibility to read external and internal influences that finally took the better of decent planning. We concern ourselves with a myriad of trivial issues trashing the bigger picture of what was descending upon these isles–Asia’s Crisis and its consequence on a fragile and resource-poor island economy.

The question is no longer who failed to diligently guard the public purse, but what could reasonably be done today to slam the brakes of bankruptcy. But this issue is a difficult one to confront head-on for as long as bureaucrats and politicians treat it with head in sand while displaying their lack of local resolve to institute proactive measures to cut down public sector expenditure.

With debts of more than $6 million owed to the utility agency (CUC), vendors, the retirement fund and other self-inflicted though inevitable deficit spending, the likelihood of staying solvent stands a fat chance of success. By the time we know it, there would be payless pay days and a mountain of IOUs, the net effect being the complete erosion of trust against public sector employees lining up in banks to cash their loot.

The deepening financial condition of the NMI is as real as one’s empty wallet or purse. This troubling phenomenon is everybody’s responsibility and we can begin by, believe it or not, changing our work attitude of accepting the fact that each of us is the government and that such term isn’t an abstract concept at all. Old paradigms must change today, right here and now, not tomorrow or when our well greased sense of destructive mañana takes the better part of our sense of responsibility and most importantly, lack of accountability. If you haven’t started already, let’s do it today!