The challenges awaiting us in 2012

In a few days we will be celebrating a New Year-2012 with all its hopes for a better future. We will pray that conditions will improve. But unless we plan and take decisive actions, 2012 will become a larger disaster than 2011 has been. Therefore let’s pause for a few minutes and reflect on where we are. We have to understand how we got into the mess we are in. Later we will discuss where we can go if we create desire, determination and the discipline needed to achieve the goals.

The following are my personal viewpoints, good or bad, accurate or inaccurate, but they are not intended as criticism. Even if some of us don’t agree with them at least they should stimulate us to examine some of our attitudes towards our problems. Only by seriously questioning our previous actions can we proceed forth with confidence and faith in the future.

Could one of the reasons behind our problems be that some indigenous citizens appear to embrace many of the tenets of the free enterprise system, but also strive to maintain a largely “controlled” or “circumscribed” relationship with the U.S. within the confining, per verbatim framework of the Covenant? Simply put, these individuals seem to profess to want to be a part of-but separate from-the United States and many of its laws. What do you think?

Another concept that we find hard to put aside is that we insist on having non-resident workers do the labor for us. We seem to be addicted to having them; yet we resent their presence and demands for wanting to enjoy a better life than where they came from.

This problem is not new. In the words of a former Saipan Chamber of Commerce President stated in 1995:

“The CNMI advantage is often framed in the context of its low and cheap labor. The lack of a highly educated and skilled workforce impacts our community when businesses can no longer find capable qualified employees and finds it necessary to look or hire elsewhere for an educated workforce.”

Why haven’t we improved on this situation of local workers versus nonresident workers since 1995? Isn’t some of the mess and confusion we are straddled with today related to our lack of a local workforce? Why haven’t we tackled this acute problem sooner?

Our nation can only become prosperous again when we local people are the main driving force in the workplace. Nothing is free in this world. Whatever we have and cherish has to be earned with our own hands.

We seem to have an almost universal belief that we are doing the investor a favor by permitting such an investment-when actually the opposite is true. Do we have a deep understanding of the need for private investors to make a profit in their capital at risk? Do we have an impression that foreign investments exploit the islands and its indigenous inhabitants? Do we understand the intense competition from other areas for investment capital? What are our true attitudes towards foreign investors?

Think of some of our investors. How well have we accepted them in our community? How well do our leaders and agencies befriend and help them? Why haven’t we tried to be investors in our resources as well? Yes, I am asking us to think about all of these things so that with our answers we can make the necessary adjustments.

The other day a newcomer to Saipan lamented to me how much nepotism he saw in just a few months of living here. I nodded my head and remained silent at what he was telling me for I have experienced the same myself too often. Nepotism is defined as “favoritism (as, in an appointment to a job) based on kinship-cousin, nephew, godson, etc. How many people do we know working in the government, not because of their knowledge and ability, but because of who they know?

We fail to see understand that the acceptance and condoning of nepotism is a breeding ground for mediocrity, incompetence and waste. The Commonwealth appears not so much as a government but rather as an “extended family.” While this may appear good to some of us, it certainly is not helping us solve our problems. We need experienced and dedicated people for us to move ahead.

Notice at the next election time how each candidate suddenly has four or five different family names which he never uses daily. We are reminded that he or she is a member of this or that family. The more family names thrown in the merrier. We are reminded that the candidate is a relative and should get our vote.

Nepotism, which is so prevalent, injuries by favoring families and relatives and clients, by making government institutions mere screens for those family networks to hide behind and by institutionalizing mediocrity. Nepotism destroys the promise of reward for competence, erodes the concept of democratic fairness and equality by reducing those not empowered through connections to a level of powerless, unorganized plebeians dependent upon the favors handed out by those in control of the bureaucracy. It’s not what we know but who we know!

In many instances people are placed in government management positions possessing only rudimentary skills and knowledge. This educational deficiency inhibits creative thinking, the ability to make critical analysis or solve problems. Doesn’t this explain some of the shallowness, lack of action, waste and incompetency, we experience daily in our government and its agencies? How much has this attitude affected our economic and social life? Shouldn’t we consider minimizing nepotism for better governance?

We are still wrestling with Article 12. Have we seriously considered what maintaining it is doing and will continue to do to our wealth fare? We must decide the merits and demerits of this at once. Since we are asking investors to invest in the CNMI their opinions must be solicited. Isn’t Article 12 a major deterrent? Think about it.

By not being permitted to own land in fee simple, foreign investors and other non-indigenous home owners are deprived of gains resulting from appreciation in land values. In fact, the more the lease term length erodes the less residual value to the lessee. Wonder why it is so hard to get a mortgage on a house?
Prudent foreign investors must strive to make up this “shadow loss” by increased long-term net earnings and certainly by an amount sufficient to compensate for what otherwise could have been alternatively earned in an interest bearing account plus compensation for the loss in purchasing power resulting from inflation.

As a former resident of Hawaii, I experienced the appreciation of land value when it changed from leasehold to a fee simple status. I recall buying land in fee simple from the Bishop Estate for $60,000. Today that same property and thousands of others like them have more than quadrupled. Think $60,000, now $250,000-same land in fee simple. Before we vote to retain Article 12, please study Hawaii and how it handled a similar problem.

Let’s pause and reflect on the above statements. Remember I am not asking any of us to agree with me. We must all arrive at our own conclusions. My goal is to make us think and then act on our course of action.

I firmly believe that the CNMI has more potential to achieve prosperity that many of us believe. We have to wake up and change our attitudes. Create goals and achieve them by our desire, determination and discipline. Let’s get off our buts (excuses) and do it! There are acres of diamonds under our feet!

Have a great week and keep SMILING! Oh, I almost forgot-a belated MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR-2012! May it bring new joy and faith to us!