Dear Editor,
We need to remind the public what happened prior to 2009 under the Democratic Party Government!
The main reason that the National Alliance Government was forced to find accommodations for the new to form Parliament of Country St. Maarten is the fact that the DP forgot to incorporate accommodations for the Parliament in the new Government Building! After the frame had been built they realized this and planned to build a new Parliament Building next to the new Government Building that would have cost millions of dollars.
The National Alliance needed to find a building in the centre of Philipsburg and did just that. It costs NAf. 96,000 a month and will have accommodations for 15 Senators, 4 faction offices (remember how long the NA had to wait to get their faction offices when the DP was governing?) and a representative parliament meeting room! That is a fair price for such an accommodation, seeing where it is situated!
By the way, what are we now paying for the BERRPI office, education office, Economic Affairs, faction office and former SMITH office? I cannot recall the DP government ever providing the public with information about the contracts they signed for all these offices!
What I do recall very clearly is that when we were in the Netherlands at the Expo in 2001, the DP government was informed about a contract regarding the sewage system for St. Maarten that was about to be signed with Intaquin and Drenthse Waterleiding Maatschappij and they took no action to prevent this.
They were aware who was going to sign and where and when. When they were back in St. Maarten they declared that they did not know that a commissioner had signed the contract, leading to a court case that has cost our island more than US $600,000. For what?
We got nothing, not a thing for that money that was wasted by the DP government. To date, we do not have a sewage system in place for the island! The commissioner still remained in office.
Talking about integrity, transparency and leadership?
The DP cannot be trusted to run the people's business. During 2004 up to 2006 there was barely any communication going on within the Executive Council or even communication between the Lt. Governor and the Government! No answers were being given to questions in the Island Counsel and a lot of money was spent by the Government without any transparency for the people of St. Maarten.
We have not forgotten the NAf. 350,000 taken out of the emergency funds of the Economic Department to use for the SummerFest to provide tickets to visitors to our island instead of giving these tickets to the people of St. Maarten. The decision was forced through the Island Council! We have not forgotten that the SEI funds were used to purchase the EDP terrain next to the harbour, where the commissioner wanted to build yet another casino, hotel and dolphinarium. Money that could have been used to assist locals to start up businesses, like Curaçao has done by developing the KORPODECO bank.
We have not forgotten that funds within the budget were rerouted from education to fund non-educational projects by the DP government. We have not forgotten that it took DP government (with assistance of a consultant) almost eight years to develop a salary structure for civil servants.
If we had not been vigilant, the people's money would have gone to one of the DP commissioner's foundation. She still remained in office! How was that possible?
Speaking about Integrity, honesty, accountability and transparency?
People of St. Maarten make your vote truly count for you and your children.
Paul Rivière
