TOPIC HUB
Business & Economy
The Business Center
Learn it now: Could You Win the Contract? → · the NBOA lessons below.
The Nation’s real business offices: the Division of Economic Development, your Regional Business Development Office (RBDO — the local door), and the Business Regulatory Department (certification & leases) — how they fit together, in the NBOA mission →
Coming to this desk (help build it): grant writing, starting a business step-by-step, funding literacy, and plain-words economics. Know this material? The Trading Post needs you →
This hub gathers everything on business and the economy: the record, where candidates stand, the lessons, and the specific problems you can act on.
Learn it
Start here to understand the whole picture.
The full picture on this topic
Read the record: The law that was supposed to build the economy
Where candidates stand: Economic Development & the NBOA
Learn the system: The Navajo Business Opportunity Act (NBOA) 101
Learn the system: Could you win the contract?
How the Nation buys — contracting
Almost every public dollar leaves the treasury through a contract. This is the part of the economy the people actually own — and the part where the rules matter most. Four laws work together, and knowing them is how you judge any deal.
The four laws that govern a contract
The Procurement Act (12 N.N.C. § 301) sets the process — how bids are solicited, opened, and awarded. The NBOA (5 N.N.C. § 201) sets the business preference — Navajo- and Indian-owned firms get a defined edge. TERO and the NPEA (15 N.N.C. § 601) set the labor rules — who gets hired and the compliance a contractor must meet. And §164 review (2 N.N.C. § 164) is the signature gate every contract clears before it counts.
Start here: How the Nation buys — the article lays out the laws and the history. How a contract is supposed to move is the step-by-step yardstick — the eleven stages, the bidding methods, the sole-source loophole, the §164 gate, who runs it, and where it can be exploited. Hold any real contract up against it and judge for yourself.
Then test yourself: Could You Win the Contract? walks the process from a bidder’s side.
The case that shaped this
Iina ba, Inc. v. Navajo Business Regulatory (SC-CV-60-10, 2014). The Navajo Supreme Court found the Nation followed the Procurement Act’s engineer-selection process but failed to apply the NBOA’s Navajo preference — the exact reason the 2026 amendments were needed. It is why the two laws must both be satisfied. More cases that decided things →
Do something
Specific problems on this subject — what each is, and what you can do about it.
Food Handler’s License (Blue Card) & Temporary Food Permit (Pink Card)
Selling or serving food on the Navajo Nation — a food stand, a flea-market booth, a restaurant job — requires a Food Handler’s (Blue) Card from the Nation’s Office of Environmental Health & Protection: attend a training class, pass the test. A Pink (temporary/itinerant) permit covers selling food at events. Whose door: this is the NATION’s office — Navajo County, Arizona runs a separate, different system; know which jurisdiction you’re in.
The Nation's Enterprises
NTUA, NTEC, Gaming (NNGC), NAPI, KTNN — businesses the Navajo Nation owns. They were created to provide services and generate revenue under Navajo control. Nineteen candidates raised enterprise accountability in the 2026 interviews.
Local Economic Development
Most money earned on the Navajo Nation is spent off it — in Gallup, Farmington, Flagstaff, and other border towns. Candidates proposed different ways to keep dollars circulating at home: arts stimulus programs (Donovan Begay proposed…
The NBOA — Navajo Businesses Come First
The Navajo Business Opportunity Act is the Nation’s procurement-priority law. When the Navajo Nation spends money on contracts, certified Navajo-owned businesses are supposed to get priority. Cal raises it in 38 of 40 interviews.
Connected
Business runs into the gray zone — tribally-owned enterprises that fall between categories, with financials that are hard to see.
The roadblocks & where they lead
Seams & accountability — how problems stall and who answers. What runs through all of it →
Root causes — funding, capacity, and unclear law underneath. The root problem →