Gov. Benigno R. Fitial yesterday released a video statement where he talks for the first time about the indictment of Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez, the possible end of daily outages, the Government Accountability Office\u2019s report, and federalization litigation option.<\/p>\n
The 12-minute video was provided to the media yesterday. It was supposed to be uploaded by the administration over the weekend to the popular video sharing website, YouTube. <\/p>\n
The administration is still working on splitting the video since it is two minutes over the YouTube\u2019s 10-minute maximum per video broadcast requirement. Press secretary Charles Reyes Jr. said yesterday the video may be uploaded anytime this week as soon as they\u2019re done working on it.<\/p>\n
In the video, Fitial took off with a brief discussion on the indictment of Villagomez and his co-defendants, describing it as \u201ca great personal disappointment\u201d to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have great sympathy for the families of all those involved. I have appointed Mike Ada as the new Secretary of Commerce,\u201d said Fitial, reading from a prepared statement.<\/p>\n
The chief executive expressed respect for the efforts of the federal law enforcement officials involved in the investigation of the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to a speedy resolution of the matter in court,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CUC updates<\/p>\n
On the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s problems, the governor said that when he asked Tony Mu\u00f1a to take charge of the utility agency, Mu\u00f1a \u201cinherited a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have confidence in his ability to look at the current problems and address them in an orderly and thoughtful manner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fitial said there are no quick fixes as the problems with CUC have been accumulating over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow my administration bears the brunt of the outages, the high bills, and the difficult repairs that are necessary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The governor then shifted to the \u201cgood news,\u201d disclosing that he just met with representatives of Aggreko International, which is under contract to supply 15 megawatt power to Saipan.<\/p>\n
The Aggreko representatives, Fitial said, advised him that the equipment would be ready by Sept. 16, 2008.<\/p>\n
Fitial and Muna expect the additional capacity will enable the island to meet peak load demands on CUC, resulting in outages coming to an end next month.<\/p>\n
The chief executive also mentioned his talks with Senate President Pete Reyes and House Speaker Arnold Palacios about the two officials\u2019 recent trip to Washington.<\/p>\n
He said he appreciates the personal effort that Reyes and Palacios made to present the CNMI\u2019s energy needs to a wide range of federal officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be clear on one point here: The Legislature and my administration speak with a single voice regarding the needs of our people. We are hopeful that the Interior Department will be able to help us,\u201d Fitial said.<\/p>\n
In addition, the governor said, he had discussed the matter with U.S. Navy Rear Admiral William D. French, who is the commander of the Naval Forces Marianas.<\/p>\n
He said French has offered to provide Navy expertise to help the CNMI in evaluating and addressing its energy needs.<\/p>\n
GAO report<\/p>\n
Fitial said he received a draft of the GAO report in June and was very disappointed with its analysis and conclusions.<\/p>\n
He said he was unable to discuss the report in public because GAO asked them not to do so until the report was released in its final version on Aug. 4. <\/p>\n
Fitial reiterated his administration\u2019s position that they do not object to the application of the federalization immigration laws aimed at protecting the nation\u2019s borders and national security.<\/p>\n
\u2018We welcome that. But we do object to the provisions of the law that seek to eliminate over time all foreign workers in our community who cannot meet the very restricted requirements of H visas under federal law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fitial cited that there are about 18,000 guest workers in the CNMI or about two-thirds of the total workforce.<\/p>\n
He said only a small percentage of these workers is likely to qualify for H visas, while the others will be allowed to remain in the CNMI only if federal officials give special CNMI-only permits to individual employers allowing them to hire foreign workers.<\/p>\n
Fitial pointed out that the law requires that the number of these special permits be reduced to zero by the end of 2014, unless the U.S. Labor Secretary grants an extension of the so-called transition period.<\/p>\n
He said Congress clearly did not listen when he and others testified when the law was being considered in Congress that reductions of foreign workers would severely damage the CNMI\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough GAO denies doing so, its report confirms our worst expectations regarding the damage we can expect if this law is implemented as written,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The report, Fitial said, refers to a well-respected book on economics authored by the present chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke.<\/p>\n
Bernanke\u2019s book states that a 10 percent reduction in the number of workers in the U.S. might be expected to cause a 7 percent decline in the economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, for the Commonwealth, a 60-percent reduction in our workforce\u2014over whatever time period\u2014would result in a 42 percent decline in our economy,\u201d Fitial noted.<\/p>\n
The governor said investors do not understand why the federal government would destroy a workforce that serves the economy well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would they make the situation so uncertain and so unwelcoming for foreign investors and foreign workers?\u201d Fitial asked.<\/p>\n
He questioned why the federal government would deny visa waivers to tourists from Korea, Russia, or China who want to buy condominiums or timeshares in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, I have difficulty in answering these questions,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
Fitial disclosed that he gets advice from the Washington law firm that he had hired several weeks ago to look at the litigation alternative.<\/p>\n
He said he would be meeting with the Legislature next week to review the options for dealing with the situation.<\/p>\n
Fitial hinted that litigation may be the only alternative to challenging the labor provisions of the new federal law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis law presents the most serious threat to our right to local self-government that the Commonwealth has ever faced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The governor reminded that, to obtain this right to local self-government, local people gave up two-thirds of Tinian; gave up Farallon de Mendenilla where the military does its bombings; and gave up sovereignty as an independent people.<\/p>\n
Fitial believes that the agreements contained in the Covenant were a good deal for the CNMI as a people.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the right of local self-government was a critically important part of that deal. If we do not defend our right of local self-government now, under these circumstances, we have little hope that Congress will respect this important right in the future,\u201d he said in the last portion of the video.<\/p>\n
Fitial promised to report back to the people on the litigation alternative issue after he is done consulting with the Legislature, business leaders, and other people in the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial yesterday released a video statement where he talks for the first time about the indictment of Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez, the possible end of daily outages, the Government Accountability Office\u2019s report, and federalization litigation option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}