Harold Monteau: Alaska Native corporations facing more criticism

Opinion

Monday, November 8, 2010

"It’s not always pleasant to be right when you see a negative prediction come true. The recent storm of media criticism directed towards Alaska Native Corporations was discussed as an impending event in this column just a couple years back. I wrote then that the ANCs needed to spread some of the wealth around they earn from taking advantage of their minority business status to other tribally-owned and Indian-owned businesses lest they find themselves standing alone the next time they needed the political help of tribes in the lower 48. The tribes should, and I suspect will, ride to the rescue again.

I don’t begrudge the success of the ANCs because they deserve all the success in the world. Their shareholders paid dearly for that success. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act stripped Alaska’s Native population of trillions of dollars in assets in one of the hugest land and natural resources grabs from a Native population in the history of the United States. The tribes do need to help the ANCs and Native American Contractors Association tribes kill this latest effort to wipe out 8(a) contract preferences for Indians, tribes and Alaska Natives, but there should be a reciprocal commitment from NACA and the ANCs to bring the other tribes and Indian-owned businesses into the contract stream.

While I don’t put much credence in the “facts” as stated in the news media, I do think NACA and the ANCs need to develop an offensive posture instead of the defensive posture they end up in every few years. Simply fighting off political attacks year after year is not going to sustain the advantages upon which the ANCs were built. A business and political strategy that benefits other tribes and Indian businesses will. The ANCs and NACA ignore the rest of Indian country at their own peril."

Get the Story:
Harold Monteau: ANCs and NACA looking for help again? (Indian Country Today 11/8)