CUC in fiscal shambles!

The utility agency is in deep fiscal hole as it now juggles which bills to pay amidst shrinking financial resources. Does it pay federal district court order on the $64 million fine, $42 million debt with CDA, buy fuel to keep the Saipan power plant humming or sputtering or pay its staff?

Half the mess is debts owed the utility agency. The balance is the lack of vision and competence on the part of management to rein in the combined use of fossil fuel and alternative energy. Its inability to make necessary repair at the power plant or buy vital parts places the island power system at the brink of likely brownouts for many moons to come. Are these fools planning to burn bunker fuel? Is the system equipped with stacks and scrubbers compliant with EPA regulations?

Some six years ago or so, I recall (as DPL secretary) availing some $3.5 million in loan via MPLT to CUC. That cushioned the system’s repair by a private firm while placing smaller generators to power the island while it worked on major repair work.

Nothing else has happened when power generation returned to normal. We even ignored planning for a more reliable, stable and affordable system for four long years.

Here we are today at the edge of another rain-and-fire dance or bonfire to light up our houses outside until it dies off at midnight. Didn’t some private firm offer the answer some four years ago? Notice now how important it is to “Plan For” rather than “Plan By” eventualities?

‘Everybody Loves Raymond’

When Buddy Magoo does the reverse visit (comes to my lanai at home), it’s usually a warning that he’s found something of substance and wants to slug it out in a debate over coffee.

He’s ultra-critical of the incumbent administration and I had to deflate his overblown ego by tripping him with threats like the need to do “due diligence.” It was my only way to ease the raucous discussion and guide it into sensible decorum. But he wasn’t prepared to grant me my day near the lemon tree.

Said he, “Braddah, the inevitable narrative that confirms reality everywhere is that this administration may be a unique political talent but a staggering disaster when it comes down to actually governing.”

He doubled up asserting, “The incumbent must have vastly underestimated the complexity of the job.” He noted that the governor is known as an accounting wizard, “yet he’d leave behind a legacy of bankruptcy!” A powerful and in your face observation! By this time my protective shields are down and useless.

Also noted that the “shovel-ready boys” (wrecking crew) haven’t been of much use, woefully helpless struggling to justify accountability for their heinous disregard of the voice of the people on casino.  But they share the governor’s impulse for half-cocked investments.

Said Magoo, “Ah, da guys have alienated themselves and in their own bubble. The taint of corruption has started to stink up on their relics such that they’ve lost depth of perception on most every significant issue.”  Gee! It’s another sterling assertion that leaves no room for refutation.

Sad how we’ve honed living beyond our means as to incur habitual annual deficits, the cumulative debt piling to a little over $1.2 billion today.  Would leadership step up to the plate? “Everybody Loves Raymond!”

Shovel-ready bankruptcy

As we stretch political niceties, we dig a wider and deeper fiscal hole convinced it’s the “shovel-ready” project of the NMI. Drowning helplessly in bankruptcy since recent past, we’re now asking which way is up! Does it matter for the wrecking crew donning arrogance sinking both government and families into the deep sea of bankruptcy?

With families robbed of their buying power right smack in the middle of the cost of living skyrocketing, would they ably spend themselves into wealth? Would not this condition sink them further into the pits of misery when their stagnant income is forcibly reduced by the vicious increase in the cost of most everything from food, health insurance, and power bills, to other obligations?

Oversight on PSS

It’s very unsettling to know that 90 percent of students who take NMC’s entrance exam flunk the test. It’s a tale that new students are woefully weak with words and numbers. As such, NMC carries the burden of failure in the public school system. It must expend money, time, and energy referring ill-prepared high school graduates to take non-degree units or remedial work. The music of seeming inconsequence plays on, including the Legislature’s education committees. Disturbing!

We know that education is “not about producing salutary test scores; rather, it is about teaching. Test scores are a component of the process of teaching and learning, but when it becomes an all-consuming passion, the engine carrying a lot of children in its cars is liable to go off the rails.” Imagine the humiliation these students would bring to colleges and universities between Guam and across the country.

What does an education official do when it is discovered that students are functioning at low proficiency levels? Rogue elements will consider cheating as a possibility.

Others will lower the standards until low proficiency rates start to look good again—social promotion—that doesn’t do justice to students’ education. PSS needs to reset its buttons on this score and focus on probing what went wrong in the obvious test scores confirming current education as egregiously flawed.

The focus of education will then have to shift to real teaching, which requires that teachers, and not test scores, are in control of what transpires in classrooms. It is time the CNMI vested its trust in teachers, not through rhetoric but through policy changes that empower teachers.  Give teachers full rein and real respect, and the CNMI once more attain instilling academic competence among our students.