Covenant, GOP bets face off in forum

In their first official face-off, the Republican Babauta-Benavente tandem pitted words and persuasive techniques with the Covenant Fitial-Villagomez duo during a forum yesterday that saw both camps addressing issues ranging from their top priorities, to the fuel surcharge and tax rebates.

With Gov. Juan N. Babauta and Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente on one side and House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial and House Vice Speaker Tim Villagomez on the other, the tandems responded to questions posed by the CNMI Bar Association, whose members gathered yesterday noon at the Aqua Resort Club’s Raraina Restaurant to meet the four candidates and hear their thoughts on CNMI issues.

The tandems of House Reps. Heinz Hofschneider and David Apatang, who are running for the CNMI’s top executive as independent candidates, and former Gov. Froilan Tenorio and Antonio Santos of the Democrat Party were not present.

Lawyer Robert Torres acted as moderator and read the questions to the candidates, who were given specified time limits for their answers.

Babauta said his top three priorities would be to push for the Public School System’s requested funding of $50 million, saying that the CNMI spends less for its students at an average of $3,000 per pupil compared to the U.S. mainland average of $8,000 per pupil; the solid waste projects for Tinian and Rota; and beefing up tourism.

“The CNMI has a long way in making this a premier destination for tourists, especially Japan and the Asian countries,” Babauta said.

On the other hand, Fitial said his team’s priorities would be to implement a comprehensive plan to fix the economy, remove the fuel surcharge on utility bills that give residents a hard time, and a balanced budget.

“We believe that there is no plan to fix the economy at present,” Fitial said. “We have a plan to diversify the Commonwealth.”

Fitial said there is a need to lure other industries into the CNMI, saying that the garment industry would eventually disappear. New industries would offset millions of dollars in government revenue that would be lost from the garment industry pullout. Citing his business connections, Fitial said he would bring in government revenue and an additional 1 million tourists in his first year in office if elected governor.

“We have a very, very serious problem. There’s only one solution to all our problems and that is money,” Fitial said. “I am running for governor because I know how to find money.”

Babauta took a different stance on the garment industry, saying that efforts are being undertaken to effect a change at the federal level. He said his administration has been supporting the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association in lobbying the U.S. Congress for the amendment of the federal tariff code to reduce value-added requirement on garment imports from 50 percent to 30 percent for local manufacturers to avail of duty-free treatment.

The U.S. Tariff Code requires that 50 percent of the value of the garment has to be added locally by transformation, in terms of additional labor, packaging or other overhead costs, so that garment products coming from U.S. exporters like the Commonwealth could enter the United States duty-free.

Babauta noted that even Fitial has also been working closely with his administration in pushing for the tariff amendment.

“We have not lost the garment industry. The industry is struggling,” Babauta said.

Babauta also noted that when he assumed the CNMI’s top executive post in 2001, the government had a deficit of about $25 million. “In the first year, we cut it down to $8 million.”

On the issue on power privatization, Babauta said the CNMI government has always wanted it for efficiency and reliability. He said the government has been reviewing two independent power proposals, while servicing and maintaining the CUC’s engines.

Villagomez, a former CUC executive director, said that certain legal and legislative barriers have to be met first before privatization could happen—including land, environmental consequences and employee status issues. He said CUC’s other programs, water and wastewater, are currently subsidized by power revenues.

On another issue, Benavente said the government has been finalizing the design for the final closure of the Puerto Rico dump. The plan incorporates construction of a trail for limited access to the former dumpsite.

On the issue of tax rebates, Fitial said no fund from the rebate trust account should be used for other purposes. But Babauta said that there was none in the account, which should have contained some $20 million, when he became governor in 2001. Babauta said the government paid taxpayers their rebate checks as revenues came in, reducing outstanding obligations that were pending before his administration.