On long-standing land compensation
At Issue: The dire need to compensate families for land acquisition by the local government of private land.
Our View: It may be a difficult feat, but neglect doesn’t absolve the local government from its obligation.
Two to three generations of landowners have died who never saw the final resolution of their properties acquired by the local government for public purposes. There are those who were accorded land exchanges, but this alternative is no longer feasible given the contraction in available public land.
A bold decision was made in recent years to compensate landowners for acquisition of their land. There were unhappy events on the rather lackadaisical attitude by our agile government in the resolution of this issue. It included drastic steps of landowners dumping coral in the middle of the road to force attention from local authorities.
Land exchange included the Obyan area where proposed golf resorts were slated for construction. It settled land issues involving families whose land were taken since years back. But the proposed resort projects were met by the Asian Crisis that essentially took out the wind of new resort development in the Obyan Beach area.
Would the CNMI see a resurgence in land leases similar to what it had in the late eighties? Maybe and just maybe! The good times are gone. The recovery efforts in Japan (hanging in the balance) and rebounding tiger economies around Asia may be good tidings. But it will take about a decade to see how successful their recovery efforts as they juggle hot potatoes of the old and new economy.
An overview, therefore, of our financial posture doesn’t look realistically encouraging. The test of management skills in the disposition of meager resources hasn’t been all that bright nor encouraging. We say one thing and do the exact opposite with the usual mañana. It is in this self-entrapment where the issue of compensating landowners is stuck. Chances of bringing this long-standing issue to finality doesn’t look good either.
The most that we could–given the CNMI’s poor financial posture–is to plead and beg of landowners to stretch their tolerance level in much the same that they have done over the last 50-plus years. Well, it’s the only realistic answer available today in our long dalliance with an issue we seem to have treated like some leper. Leadership must resolve this issue once and for all!
