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DOC to look into economic impact of network outage
The Department of Commerce is now working to come up with an assessment on the economic impact of the CNMI-wide network outage and the ongoing limited Internet problem on Saipan
According to acting Commerce secretary Dave Maratita, they will be doing a survey to be able to get information from the community.
“That was discussed in the Cabinet meeting. We will look into that,” Maratita said.
He added that it will be a socio-economic survey that will look into what kind of impact businesses experienced from this problem
Maratita also said that they will try to capture the businesses’ as well as the consumers’ standpoint on what impact they experienced.
He said they will be waiting for Commerce Secretary Mark Rabauliman, who should be returning to the island this week after being on leave due to official business.
The department did not give a rough estimate on how much the CNMI lost and is losing because of the network problem.
“The survey will definitely give an overall estimate,” he said.
He added that the approach will probably be to conduct a survey on random businesses and consumers.
“But that’s not definite yet. We still have to come up with a specimen on what type of questions will we have,” Maratita said.
“That’s still under planning and discussion,” he added.
