The role of both sectors
The partnership between public and private sectors is ever more important today than ever before. When the private sector slides, the other picks up the slack and fuels what’s known as public works projects to cushion the other until it attains recovery.
I was really hoping that leadership had the vision to step right in and cushion the overall economy when it started heading south. It would have slammed the brakes of loss of investor confidence. But complacency and an apparent case of shock engulfed their better judgment as to sing along: “Ke sera sera”.
Loss of investor confidence was the one thing that needed full protection. It slipped out of our hands. Perhaps our lapse in this instance proved the most fatal in fueling the deepening crisis. And the previous legislatures tightened the nook with arrogant protectionist measures as industries struggled to stay above water.
I’m not going to penalize anyone about the obvious lack of leadership in that we know the new theme–Ke Sera Sera–must have been quietly rehearsed to get every note down pad. It’s so melodic I even cry when I hear it time and again. It must be a local version of “soul” music, music that would eventually turn into discordant notes as more people are forced to joining the choir of hopelessness and abject poverty.
If anyone wants to brave asserting that the local economy has started to make a turn-around, you must be hallucinating in the sea of ignorance. It’s time to secure reality check by critically reading up on events across the country and how a recession may prove ruinous for all the recovery efforts in the Land of the Rising Sun. I also have guarded optimism that things would change in snail-like pace. But it would get worse before it gets any better.
Most industries here have hit rock bottom. Some would muddle through as they rake in pennies, nickels and dimes to make ends meet. Others would definitely go belly up. Those that survive the bad times would find recovery very slow. How true that after a heavy fall, it doesn’t mean one can stand up or take the first step with suspect strength or confidence. It is confidence that we have lost from both current and prospective investors. Let’s hope and pray that we can revive it some fine day.
Accelerating a thoroughly thought out economic plan, sanctioned by the legislature so we could employ bond flotation, would have done some good. Unfortunately, each branch, not to mention, each chamber, wanted the same thing but lost track of their blue print to inch their way through the maze. As such, we’re still in square one and far from moving out of the woods of the current crisis. Perhaps this is the end result of hollowness and shallowness where leadership never gave itself the grand opportunity to adopt a “win-win” working relationship with private industries in order to see the larger picture. Its alleged vision, unfortunately, was limited to the length of their awfully short noses.
I have pointed out time and again that paradigms have changed and so leadership must retreat and reassess requisite new approaches so imposed by the Information Technology. Leadership must have retreated but never exited its cubicle for fear it has nothing concrete to offer. Indeed, they offered a whole lot of nothing! Where does this grand neglect place the future of posterity? You tell me! Definitely, there’s a dire need to learn how to work with the private sector. We can’t shove aside the most productive sector of the Northern Marianas Community.
Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.
