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St. Maarten– The ministry of tourism and economic affairs is going back to the drawing board with timeshare legislation and that is not to the liking of the Democratic Party. DP-MP Sarah Wescot-Williams said yesterday that the party would take back its initiative legislation and go forward with it if there is no fast action forthcoming from the ministry.
Former DP-MP Leroy de Weever submitted draft timeshare legislation. That initiative hit a snag when the Council of Advice rejected it based on the fact that it was written in English as an amendment to the civil code, which is written in Dutch.
When the DP resubmitted the draft as stand-alone legislation, the Council of Advice fell again over the language. While it was up to the DP to counter the objections from the Council of Advice, Wescot-Williams said at the time that she saw an option to speed things up by handing over the package to the government and ask it to submit it as draft legislation. “Via the government apparatus this could go faster,†Wescot-Williams said in January – but that turned out to be not the case.
On the contrary, Wescot-Williams found out that the legal team of the new minister of tourism and economic affairs, Claret Connor, wants to redo the whole legislation.
“I will not be part of that,†Wescot-Williams said, indicating that, if the ministry wants to go that way, she will take back the initiative law and get to work with it herself. “This has been going on for too long,†she said yesterday.
The party’s policy advisor, Emil Lee, shed his light on the timeshare situation in an op-ed that we publish today unabridged on our opinion page,
