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Open Government

Our government wishes to be open and transparent. We have seen some examples of this given by Public Health Minister Emil Lee and only last week, Education Minister Silveria Jacobs confirmed that she is on the same page – actually, that the whole government is on the same page.

Well, let’s test those statements against an initiative that came up in the Netherlands and that seems to fit St Read more

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Pm Marlin: “First Electoral Reform” No Elections In February

Ministers Silveria Jacobs, William Marlin and Emil Lee (l.t.r.) at the first press briefing of the new cabinet Read more

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Samuel And Richardson Return To Parliament

Rodolphe Samuel and Hyacinth Richardson (third and second from right) wait to be sworn in. Photo Today / Milton Pieters

St. Maarten – Rodolphe Samuel and Hyacinth Richardson took the empty seats of National Alliance faction leader William Marlin and Silveria Jacobs yesterday afternoon in parliament, after a small committee of three, consisting of MPs Leona Marlin-Romeo, Dr Read more

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“Saying That Elections Will Stop Ship Jumping Is Lying To Voters”

St. Maarten – Parliamentarians bitched and moaned about rules and regulations yesterday all the way until the final vote on the two motions the new majority presented yesterday morning. It was a losing battle for the opposition UP and its faithful independents and in the end, it did not change anything at all.

Independent MP Cornelius de Weever started with an attack on the new president of parliament, Sarah Wescot-Williams Read more

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University Reminds Government Of Promise To Increase Subsidy

St. Maarten – On May 20 the Board of the University of St. Maarten Foundation, assisted by its management team, discussed the developments of the University with the parliamentary committee of Education, Culture, Youth & Sport Affairs. During that meeting, which was chaired by MP Silveria Jacobs, Minister of Education Rita Bourne-Gumbs made two public promises Read more

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Parliament Discusses The Dissolution Of Parliament

St. Maarten – Parliament meets on Wednesday morning at 10.a.m. to discuss the dissolution of parliament. On the same day, the minister of the Marcel Gumbs cabinet are at the Governor’s cabinet to sign their resignation letters. Governor Holiday has confirmed that he will subsequently sign the national decree to dissolve the parliament.

National Alliance MPs George Pantophlet, Silveria Jacobs and Christophe Emmanuel requested the meeting in a letter dated October 20.

The meeting will be broadcast live on St Read more

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Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs: “I Will Not Back Down”

Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs (left) makes his position perfectly clear while Ministers Hassink, Sams and Connor look on. Photo Today / Andrew Dick

St. Maarten – “I will not back down,” Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs told this newspaper yesterday afternoon while he was walking back to the government building, where earlier yesterday he shed his light once more on the constitutional crisis that holds the country in a deadly embrace.

Professor Arjen van Rijn repeated yesterday in the Antilliaans Dagblad his firm position on the constitutional crisis: when the parliament hits, the cabinet is allowed to hit back Read more

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St. Maarten Government Falls Again: Fifth Cabinet In Five Years In The Making

UP-leader Theo Heyliger (left) and MP Silvio Matser on 10-10-14 when they were still political allies. Now the political marriage is over: “I cannot take the internal abuse anymore,” Matser said yesterday Read more

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St. Maarten Government Falls – Three Coalition Members Defect

Picture: St. Maarten Parliament

NEWSFLASH!! St. Maarten– The Gumbs government fell shortly after 12.30 p.m. today (Wednesday, September 30, 2015) after the parliament passed a motion of no-confidence submitted by Democratic Party MP Sarah Wescot-Williams with an 8-7 vote Read more

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Meeting About Zebec-Deal Continues: Opposition Questions Deal, Coalition Praises Harbor

St. Maarten – Parliament will have to wait until this afternoon for answers to the questions it posed yesterday in a public meeting about the settlement between the Harbor Group of Companies and real estate developer Zebec over the failed Harbor Village project.

As Today reported on Monday, September 14, social insurance agency SZV borrowed the harbor $10 million on a short 3-month loan to settle the dispute with Zebec.

Yesterday’s meeting did not bring anything new to light Read more

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Meeting About Zebec-Deal Continues: Opposition Questions Deal, Coalition Praises Harbor

St. Maarten – Parliament will have to wait until this afternoon for answers to the questions it posed yesterday in a public meeting about the settlement between the Harbor Group of Companies and real estate developer Zebec over the failed Harbor Village project.

As Today reported on Monday, September 14, social insurance agency SZV borrowed the harbor $10 million on a short 3-month loan to settle the dispute with Zebec.

Yesterday’s meeting did not bring anything new to light Read more

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Mp Silveria Jacobs Embarrassed By Ministers’ Crude Language

St. Maarten – National Alliance MP Silveria Jacobs admonished Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs and Vice Prime Minister Dennis Richardson yesterday for the language they have used in public fora Read more

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Garbage Meeting Fizzles: Many Questions, No Answers And No Solutions

St. Maarten – At the end of a long meeting, finally there were some fireworks when opposition MP asked Vromi-Minister Claret Connor to answer one question: “Is there a contract with a company to build the waste-to-energy plant and how does this jive with your visit to a project in Miami?”

Minister Connor, who had just said that he would be able to inform the parliament on Monday when he would be able to answer the more than one hundred questions MPs had asked, did not bite Read more

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Minister Richardson Criticizes Attorney-General Schram: “Justify Your Claims Or Shut The Hell Up”

Justice Minister Richardson is tired of accusations about corruption. Photo Today / Milton Pieters

St. Maarten – “My position has changed: it is put up or shut up. Justify your claims or shut the hell up. This has to stop,” Justice Minister Dennis Richardson said yesterday afternoon in parliament about the statements Attorney-General Guus Schram made last Friday about the interconnection between the underworld and the legitimate part of St. Maarten’s society.

“There are numerous indications showing that the underworld and the legitimate society in St Read more

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Only National Alliance Votes Against Ordinance: Parliament Establishes Integrity Chamber

St. Maarten – After everything was said and done yesterday, only the opposition faction of the National Alliance voted against the establishment of the Integrity Chamber. The United People’s party faction, having voiced serious opposition against the Dutch pressure on St. Maarten, withdrew all of the amendments it proposed to the law in June, and went along with a strategic proposal from opposition MP Sarah Wescot-Williams to accept the proposal the government put on the table Read more

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Only 6 Of 22 Motions Since 2012 Yielded Results: Motions Carry The Day – But Only In Parliament

St. Maarten – The motions Members of Parliament submit during the annual budget debate seldom yield results. This newspaper examined 28 motions a host of parliamentarians tabled since 2012. With 22 of them successive government did absolutely nothing. Six of them yielded (some) results.

When governments fail to execute motions, parliament never retaliates. In the Netherlands, a cabinet that refuses or neglects to execute a motion that is carried by a majority in parliament, could lead to a cabinet crisis Read more

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Mp Silveria Jacobs Becomes New Na-Leader Next Year

St. Maarten – The leadership of the National alliance will transfer in 2016 from MP William Marlin to MP Silveria Jacobs, current party leader Marlin said yesterday in answer to a question from this newspaper Read more

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First Meeting Ad Hoc Committee Integrity: Code Of Conduct Suddenly A Priority For Parliamentarians

St. Maarten – Thirteen years after former Lt. governor Franklyn Richards proposed it for the first time to the Island Council, the ad hoc committee Integrity of parliament met yesterday and named establishing a Code of Conduct for parliament a priority.

“I believe it is a priority for parliament to have a Code of Conduct,” committee-chairman Cornelius de Weever said.

The committee’s meeting was off to what felt like a reluctant start – the objective of this first meeting being to set the perimeters for the committee’s activities and responsibilities Read more

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Scholar Julio Romney; “St. Maarten Is Not A Country”

GREAT BAY – “Sint Maarten is not a country.” That statement from political scientist Julio Romney during the presentation of his book St. Maarten: Our Constituent State Constituent Framework resulted in a heated debate with Acting Governor Reynold Groeneveldt, who strongly disagreed. Romney however, stuck to his position: “For Pete’s sake, you cannot even determine your own budget,” he said, slightly exasperated.

Romney’s 128-page book about St. Maarten’s governing system dives deeper into what Romney calls incorrect political terms, like ‘Country Sint Maarten,’ ‘dualism’ and ‘separation of powers.’

According to Romney – a scholar of comparative government and politics – these terms are “conceptually taken out of context.” His explanation in the book: “St Read more

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Romney’S Draft Electoral Ordinance Prohibits Going Independent

St. Maarten – Political analyst Julio Romney presented on Wednesday evening his proposal for electoral reform in the form of a draft electoral reconciliation ordinance. The draft contains two key differences with the current system. One is the way seats are distributed among the parties that contest the elections; the other is a ban for Members of Parliament to declare themselves independent.

Romney supports the D’Hondt system for seat distribution. In this system, the numbers of votes won by each party are divided by a series of increasing denominators – from 1 until as high as necessary to arrive at a result.

Using this method, the results of the 2014 elections would have been exactly the same in terms of seat distribution Read more

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Mp Silveria Jacobs Elected Chair Of Education Committee

St. Maarten – MP Silveria Jacobs has been elected as the Chair of the Committee for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Affairs (CECYSA) of Parliament and MP Tamara Leonard has been elected as Vice Chair.

The Committee for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Affairs (CECYSA) of Parliament met on Friday morning to elect a new chair and vice chair on the request of a majority of members.

The committee increased by an additional three members and now consists of eight Members of Parliament (MPs)—MP Silveria Jacobs, MP Sarah Wescott Williams, MP Tamara Leonard, MP Christopher Emmanuel, MP Maurice Lake, MP Leona Marlin-Romeo, MP Johan Leonard and MP Van Hugh de Weever.

MP Silveria Jacobs was re-elected as Chair, and MP Tamara Leonard was elected as Vice Chair both by unanimous vote by all seven members present Read more

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Today’S Predictions For The New Year: Still No Waste-To-Energy Plant, No Plastic Bag-Ban, No New Hospital

St. Maarten / By Hilbert Haar – “It seems almost too easy: predict what will and what will not happen in St. Maarten in any given year.” that was the first sentence of the article we published exactly a year ago about our predictions for the New Year – and it is still true. Our headline read “Emilio Wilson estate purchase but no waste-to-energy plant.” Needless to say, both predictions were on the mark.

The Today newspaper made its first predictions in 2010, when we looked ahead at 2011 Read more

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Answers Will Have To Wait Until Mid-January: Parliament Wants Clarity About Housing Foundation

St. Maarten – Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs answered the call to appear in Parliament as the acting minister of public housing within 72 hours after he was sworn in on Friday. Members of Parliament appreciated that, even though Gumbs sent them on their way with a flea in their ear, after listening to questions about the chaos of the St. Maarten Housing Development foundation for more than two hours.

The minister brought to mind the words he spoke on Friday in the constituting meeting where his team officially took over the reins: “The country needs tranquility, stability, civility and prosperity.”

Furthermore, Gumbs noted: “Integrity has been a buzz word this year Read more

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