Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
~ Consideration to avoid gaps in permits ~
PHILIPSBURG--The servers at the Departments of Labour and Social Affairs are expected to be "up and running" in about two weeks, says Labour Minister Cornelius de Weever.
The minister said on Wednesday that the servers had been sent abroad to be fixed. The system went down about four weeks ago due to a power surge and persons have been unable to submit employment permit renewal requests. The power surge resulted in a "total crash" of the system.
De Weever had said in an earlier statement that, despite this setback, the Department of Social Services was continuing to take in and process applications for financial aid, medical aid and legal aid; the Department of Labour Affairs will continue with the handling of job placement and surrounding activities, labour registrations and the submitting of vacancies.
However, he had said at the time that the department was unable to accept applications for employment permits until the server/data had been restored.
Some concerns have been expressed that persons in need of employment permit renewals can be subjected to a "gap" in their papers because of this lengthy delay, which could affect their possible future application for permanent residence as well as in other areas.
When asked what provisions have been made (or will be made) for this group of persons who are currently unable to apply for their renewals and could be subjected to a gap to avoid all the issues that having a gap in one's papers can pose, the minister said "we have considered facilitating the process and taking the fact that the system is down into consideration to avoid them being an issue with the gaps."
The minister said he was "anxiously awaiting" the server being functional again as it has "slowed down" some of the processes at the departments. He said, however, that the departments were "still working diligently to serve the public. It's just that it creates a backlog in the back office and we would not want to have that for too long."
Both departments are still operating half-day from 8:30am to 12:00 noon, Monday through Friday. "They are still working half-days. The afternoons are used to try and work off the backlog as much as possible in any which way they can because once you accept the application of a client, you need to make sure that whatever needs to be done... needs to continue," the minister said.
