Inching our way through the maze
With investor confidence having receded with the tide of mañana, it’ll take about a decade before we can rebuild it to the level, “as we know it”. Recovery from a heavy flu (mañana virus) isn’t a guarantee that you can stand up or take your first confident step away from your bed.
You’d need to slide out of bed, slowly. You may even have to endure dizzy spells from laying down too long. Your supple muscles may have dissolved into soft tissues. A slow walk out of your bedroom could be jerky. After a while on the lounge chair, you may long to return to your bed for more rest.
Recovery–in economic parlance–involves a long process that is riddled with ifs, ands, and in-betweens. It is such an imperfect process that relies heavily on hard data, proactive attitude and realistic policies. In other words, conditions today emerged from yesterday’s decisions or indecisions (which ever came first). Therefore, predicting the future from today’s indecisions is next to impossible. Hope it isn’t a microcosm of what lies ahead.
Even with greater incentives now in the books–tax and other breaks for current and prospective investors–it would take something greater than the mandates of the new law to reign-in fresh investments. It’ll take years before we could see fresh rounds of investments and about the same time period thereafter to see how they pan out. I find it ironic that as our tourism industry heads south, neighboring Guam doesn’t seem to be adversely affected at all. Our southern neighbor must have been doing something right while we doze off in grand mañana!
The CNMI must proactively review and repeal old paradigms on investments. The “business as usual” mind set no longer works. The public sector must borrow expertise from the private sector in areas where it lacks warm bodied professionals. We need professionals to assist our elected leaders secure a glimpse of the forest over the trees. These people know their materials and are far removed from provincial politics. They are focused on a discipline–profit making–that doesn’t include venturing into the strange turf of provincial politics.
I find it troubling that even in the private sector, only a handful really have an inkling why our canoe can’t move forward however the whippy trade winds. Strangely though, the views of these people are nowhere to be heard in government quarters not that they have donned the role of Zachary the Mute, but those in power can’t see beyond the years. Thus, the prolongation of an old and stale tune: Ke Sera Sera….”
Seemingly, we’re at the brink of total financial meltdown, if not, already. I wish it’s contrary. The loud music of grand mañana keeps picking up decibels even when I have turned it off completely. Perhaps we should all join the chorus if only to satisfy the Choir of Failure treading Planet Capital Hill. Disgusting, isn’t it? Anybody home? A` Saina!
Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune.
