Even with the challenges the CNMI is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Torres-Palacios administration is taking steps to revive the economy, according to Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios.<\/p>\n
In an interview Wednesday at his office, Palacios also urged the community to continue adhering to the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 health protocols to keep the islands and its people safe. He said the CNMI has managed to keep its COVID-19 infections low\u2014\u201cWe\u2019ve done it. We\u2019ve done it very well\u201d\u2014but the community must still not put its guard down.<\/p>\n
Palacios just arrived\u00a0on Saipan from the U.S. mainland two weeks ago after he was gone for three months due to a medical issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the administration is working very hard in looking at different ways to begin to, at least in increments, revive the economy, with business partners sitting down at the table with the Governor\u2019s Economic Advisory Council to explore their options. He said they are also listening to some recommendations from others who are not in the advisory council on how to improve the economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re taking a look at how we will bounce back,\u201d the lieutenant governor said.<\/p>\n
He noted that because of COVID-19 protocols, even the disaster programs on super typhoon constructions, infrastructure, and housing are a major challenge today.<\/p>\n
Palacios said there are still a lot of homes that need to be built or repaired and even the Federal Emergency Management Agency is encountering many challenges with sourcing construction workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing in additional [construction] workers has been a challenge,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Palacios said he wants to continue asking people to be patient because there\u2019s a lot of things that are also out of the government\u2019s control.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For\u00a0the things that they can control, Palacios said they will try to fix them.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even with the challenges the CNMI is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Torres-Palacios…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":338741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338770","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}