SXMElections.com

THE HAGUE--Intervention of the Kingdom Government is painful and it might be experienced by some as unjust, but it is necessary because without help from the Netherlands, St. Maarten will not be able to tackle the integrity violations and clean up the dirty politics.

Members of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) and André Bosman of the liberal democratic VVD party wholeheartedly supported the decision of the Kingdom Council of Ministers last Friday, to start the procedure to invoke a so-called General Measure of the Kingdom Government (“Algemene Maatregel van Rijksbestuur” AMvRB) to set up an Integrity Chamber for St. Maarten.

“Harsh action is needed; not because the Netherlands is happy to do so or because it is our hobby. We are doing this in the interest of St. Maarten and its people. Everyone benefits from good governance,” said Van Raak in an interview with The Daily Herald this week.

“St. Maarten thinks it can tackle this problem on its own. This can never be done as long as the Integrity Chamber proposed by St. Maarten remains under the influence of local politics. The Integrity Chamber cannot be tied to government in any way, and neither can be the funding of this organisation which needs to be completely autonomous and be able to carry an investigation through,” said Bosman.

Bosman and Van Raak said it was essential that the St. Maarten Parliament would have no influence over the Integrity Chamber in any way. “The integrity reports have confirmed that Parliament is part of a serious problem. Parliament clearly has no self-cleaning mechanism because convicted Members of Parliament stay on,” said Bosman.

Van Raak said people in the Netherlands viewed the fact that Silvio Matser, who remained on as a Member of Parliament (MP) after the Court found him guilty of tax evasion, as “highly peculiar.” He also mentioned the court case against former MP Patrick Illidge and the investigation into the buying of votes by the United Peoples (UP) party.

According to Van Raak, the time of drafting reports and installing committees has passed. “Action is needed. Corruption has to be tackled. That is not a matter of drafting more paperwork, but of concrete action. St. Maarten cannot do this alone. It needs the help of the Kingdom,” he said.

Bosman agreed that action is needed, “Poverty issues, the problem of children going to school hungry, investments in education and proper infrastructure can never be tackled if the money ends up in the wrong pockets. This way the money will never benefit the people,” he said.

The guaranteeing of good governance on the islands is a responsibility of the Kingdom, Bosman remarked. “We will increasingly be confronted with this fact and people should get accustomed to it. Everyone with common sense could have seen this action from the Kingdom Government coming,” he said.

Van Raak said he understood that people were questioning the meddling by The Hague; but, he added, there are also people who think that the Kingdom needs to get involved. “No matter whether you agree or not with this move, everybody concurs that corruption and nepotism needs to be tackled,” he said.