A master plan or the scatterbrained approach
The governor is struggling to repair the catastrophic damage to our economy, but the reforms and synergy needed to create a booming economy has yet to materialize. Why does the governor have to plead with CPA to focus on promoting airlines to return to the CNMI? I’m sure it’s the politics of CPA that conflicts with the governor. The Japanese people, their government, and airlines are being negatively influenced by CPA’s public efforts with their cries for China—it’s counterproductive to the governor’s goal!
I was trying back in the mid-2000s to warn our leaders that our World War II tourism model was becoming outdated due to the aging Japanese tourist market with an interest in World War II and the beginning of Chinese tourists in the CNMI.
The Japanese actually telegraphed to us their distaste when Japan Airlines pulled out in 2005 without any warning, in part due to Chinese traveling in numbers to the CNMI as tourists. Heck, I also warned our leaders in 2001 that the garment industry was leaving and, just like Japan Airlines, the garment industry left in the middle of the night without warning on Dec. 31, 2005.
When will our leaders get it that China is the source of our economic woes? We are caught in a cultural conflict between China and Japan and these two critical incidents could have been addressed, avoiding damage to our economy years in advance. But it proved to me that too many of our leaders don’t care when they refuse to listen, driven by political jealousy, bigotry, and even vengeance that has only served to harm the CNMI.
Where is the master plan for our economic recovery? Because what I see is a scatterbrained approach to our recovery. CPA is pushing for China when the governor wants them to focus on Japan. The Casino Commission is stringing things out just to keep their jobs when we need an expeditious resolution—the CC should have filed suit for the entire $ 141 million owed the government and people, so we can move forward with the new. Heck, didn’t we learn from the same thing with the casino commissioners on Rota who were paid for years when there was no casino? Everything IPI owns except for the buildings and stocks is up for sale but not so much as a whisper about our $77 million because Ambrose M. Bennett is the only one screaming murder about this intentional oversight by the CC. So what does that tell citizens who need to wake up and help me!
PSS, NMC, and NMTI are doing their very best to transform our workforce but they are barely scratching the surface when it comes to building a real case to present to the feds in 2029 for keeping some CWs. It’s a scatterbrained approach and it’s not their fault.
Our leaders and the average citizen know that we need new investors that will bring new revenue sources, yet no one in government has lifted a finger to directly address this need for new investors. The late CNMI founder, Eddie Pangelinan, once told me that when the U.S. Senate rejected the request of the CNMI to become a Commonwealth, the founders sought out every U.S. senator and convinced them to approve the Commonwealth. We must do the same thing—seek out investors if we truly want to attract new investors, especially when we don’t have a new tourism model to promote. In fact, what is our intended tourism model now or are we still only focusing on the WWII model that has expired? What kind of investors are we trying to attract? Heck, what is our master plan for rebuilding our tourism? The MVA can’t do it alone nor can our governor when there are so many scatterbrained efforts that conflict with the vision he has for rebuilding our tourism industry. We the people and the governor need all the stakeholders to buy into to the governor’s plans, just like they did when we first created our tourism industry—if we are to create real reforms with synergy in our quest for prosperity.
Ambrose M. Bennett
Kagman III, Saipan
Letter
