Don’t destroy Pagan for Azmar’s profit

My name is Deborah Muusers. I have been a CNMI resident for five years this June. I love Saipan and will most likely retire here. My daughter is half-Carolinian. Her father was born on Agrigan. She has relatives from Pagan. I have ties to this community, and I care deeply about what happens here. I am the silent majority political analysts never seem able to get a handle on when they try to guess how we will vote. I am registered and I vote in every election.

In my five years on Saipan there have been many times when I wanted to speak out about something, to write to the newspapers and voice my opinions. I never did that. Until now. This is too important to the health, welfare and future happiness of my child and the children of the CNMI.

The deal offered by AZMAR is an extremely poor one for the people, and the coffers, of the CNMI. If AZMAR were a company offering an IPO (Initial Public Offering, wherein the company sells its shares on the stock market to raise capital for various expansion projects), I would buy as many shares as I could afford and borrow more money to buy shares in AZMAR.

AZMAR stands to make an enormous profit. Billions of dollars in profit for very little capital outlay beyond the first few years. What a deal! Billions of dollars for a shadow company with no admitted experience in mining and extremely questionable tactics. Never mind that mining Pozzolan from Pagan is not easy by any experienced mining company’s standards. AZMAR appears to me to be treating the people of the CNMI like ungrateful children who can’t see the light and hold a festival in AZMAR’s honor for offering the CNMI a tiny piece of OUR own enormous pie.

If AZMAR is from Arizona, why is it incorporated in Texas? Why, when I go to the mining and industrials website, Ollifiers, can I only find limited info about AZMAR? Info only listed since Feb 2004 and having zero contact information, not even a city listed in Texas for where AZMAR is allegedly incorporated? No mailing address. No telephone number. No mining activity. Is AZMAR possibly incorporated in Texas because Texas has no state income tax? So, no pesky IRS looking for their share of AZMAR’s profits? The basic information does not even list Ken Moore’s name, only the vice president’s name.

I could go on and on about all the reasons why AZMAR is going to rip off the CNMI. Many of those reasons have already been quite well explained by other citizens of the CNMI. Surely the CNMI can get a better deal for itself? I urge all of you, our representatives, to not give away the house. This is the CNMI’s house, not AZMAR’s, and the house of the CNMI’s children and grandchildren.

Imagine, Senators and Representatives, a CNMI yearly budget that allows us to have the best hospital in the Pacific? No off-island medical transportation needed, because the profits from Pagan were able to fund a first class medical and teaching hospital that brings in patients from all over Asia and the Pacific. Imagine a budget for PSS that allows us to graduate children who are in the top 5 percent of the SAT scores? Twenty-four hour water? Twenty-four hour power? How about a first-class university so that our children don’t have to fly thousands and thousands of miles away from family for their college education? How about excellent, modern infrastructure? Imagine being able to fund a solar power plant and reduce our reliance on disappearing oil and the increased expense of bringing it here? Imagine a budget where every child in the CNMI who wants to go to go to an Ivy league college can do so, funded by the CNMI? What else can you imagine for your families and constituents? What else could you do with BILLIONS o dollars in profit? Am I dreaming? I hope not.

Imagine being held up the world over as an example of a strong island nation leading the Pacific through this century? It can happen, all of it, if you don’t give up control to AZMAR. Don’t let visions of a small amount of money cloud your minds and hearts.

Yes, we are in severe financial difficulties. Yes, the money promised by AZMAR would certainly help. However, AZMAR’s offerings are tiny. How much good can a few million dollars a year do against the vast profits the CNMI could gain? You MUST look past the next few years and think of the future. You MUST take control of the CNMI’s financial future. You MUST not give over Pagan to a company who cares little for the CNMI or its people and wants only to strip down Pagan to bare rock.

This is a golden opportunity. A once in many lifetimes opportunity to provide immense wealth for the CNMI, and to be the proper environmental stewards of Pagan. Let us not destroy Pagan for the sake of AZMAR’s profits. Let us not destroy Pagan for the sake of our own profits. I believe that we, the silent majority, are waiting to see how you, our duly elected leaders and representatives, treat the untapped assets of the CNMI. We are watching.

Deborah Muusers
Papago, Saipan