DIEGO TENORIO BENAVENTE

Personal Background
Born: April 21, 1959, Saipan
Spouse: Julia Victoria Iriarte
Children: Jacob, Diana, James, and Dolores

Educational Background:
– Took up elementary and high school at Mt. Carmel
– Graduated from Northern Mariana Islands police academy, 1977
– Undergraduate student of College of Southern Idaho

Professional Background

– Entrepreneur before entering politics in 1990

– Elected for six consecutive terms as congressman from 1990 to 2001, serving as speaker three times during the period

– elected as Lt. Governor in 2002 to the present

– As Lt. Governor, he chairs the Solid Waste Task Force, American Memorial Park Development Committee, 902 Talks, CNMI Water Task Force and Board of Governors for Pacific Island Development Bank.

Q. What would you consider the top issues or concerns facing the CNMI that demand immediate action from our government leaders?

1. Building a self-sustainable economy. This can be done by creating an educated workforce and bring in high tech jobs from companies willing to take advantage of our favorable tax system, American legal and judicial systems, and enviable climate.

2. Creating an educated community. PSS must be funded to U.S. levels. Early childhood development must be encouraged. And higher education must be available and affordable for everyone. We have pledged $20 million in compact impact funds to maintain our public school buildings. We also proposed and fully support a $50 million budget for PSS.

3. Building an infrastructure that will entice business, sustain tourism, and provide service to our residents. We will continue to improve our power and water systems and we must keep improving our highways and streets. We must also offer improved telecommunications service as most 21st century business require these services. Over the last four years we have spent $140 million in infrastructure development and we must continue this effort.

4. Improve the environment. Our economic future depends on the environment—water, land and air—being clean and attractive. We completed the new Marpi landfill and instituted recycling and other advanced handling of solid wastes. We focused on our near and off shore resources and our coral reef task force effort has been greatly successful with increased funding and projects such as revegetation of a hillside on Rota to prevent erosion into the water. We are investing in storm water projects with the goal of controlling dirty water from running into the lagoon. A large project in Garapan to create a wetland park that will also filter storm water has also just begun.

Q. What ideas can you bring to the table to revive the CNMI economy?

1. Keep improving the CNMI as a destination for tourists. Our natural beauty will not fade. We must clean up the environment and continue to develop options for tourists. Active activities, shopping malls with activities for families, etc. will also be provided.

2. Continue to offer stability to investors. Federal takeover is not an issue any longer. Businesses will not invest in locations where the rules are unclear. We must stay the course and offer stability to investors.

3. Encourage high-tech companies like call centers, financial service companies or film studios to establish their businesses here. Currently we have investors going through the QC process in all these areas.

Q. What is your vision for the Commonwealth? And what are the steps that must be taken to achieve that vision?

Our vision for the Commonwealth is to create a healthy, educated and motivated population. The last few years have greatly tested us. Global factors such as war, SARS, and rising oil prices have greatly impacted us here on this small island. Where large places can spread out these impacts on large populations, we feel each event personally. We have risen to these challenges by working hard and providing a stable base. That base is education. If we can educate our younger people, they will enter adulthood with multiple options for their future. We can do this by really investing in their future by improving the facilities and making the required sacrifices to fully fund the PSS. We have spent most of our compact impact funds on education as we have always believed that it will produce the kind of community that we wish to reside in. We have also focused on sports and fitness.

Q. What needs to be changed in people’s ways of thinking and doing things as a means to achieve your vision? How can that shift in thinking be achieved?

We have a choice. We can be swayed by the promises of quick return on Third World economic activities which will result in low wages and large numbers of foreign workers or we can strive for first world economic industries and higher end tourism. To achieve that, people will need more education and better skills and we need state of the art infrastructure. If we are going to compete for tourists we have to offer them a quality environment and experience complete with good service.

The lieutenant governor and I have worked to develop a solid base for industry and we are poised to take advantage. Don’t take our word, look at the facts, most of our hotels are undergoing renovations, our golf courses have new ownership and are improving, we have new terminal facilities being completed in Tinian, there are three financial service QCs being considered and we have new ownership for the Rota resort that also plans to greatly improve the facility. These investors are optimistic and will not be here if they did not feel good about our economic climate.