Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
Dear Editor,
The working relationship with the Dutch housing corporation Woonlinie and St. Eustatius is again in jeopardy. Free advice and financial aid has been turned down by government, which makes the future of decent low-income housing for Statia's citizens dimmer than ever before. Particularly, the apparent reason behind all of this is baffling.
The agreed upon interim director, supplied by Woonlinie, who had as his mission the reorganisation and strengthening of the housing foundation has left the island after Commissioner Zaandam told him that his skin colour was not suitable to lead the foundation. This happened after the executive council had already signed an agreement for his appointment.
In this document it was further agreed to put the appointment of a permanent director and a new board on hold until after the next CN week, which will be held in June 2015. This should allow ample time for the reorganisation, updating the statutes and drafting plans on how to move forward.
Not only is not allowing the interim director doing his work against the agreement with Woonlinie, the same counts for the steps Commissioner of Housing Carlyle Tearr is taking with regard to pushing forward the appointment of a new board.
One wonders why is all this happening and why are both commissioners disregarding earlier agreements at a price whereby the US $400,000 Golden Rock homes renovation project financed by the ministry of interior affairs, is sacrificed and construction of six much needed low income homes is off the table?
Then within the Democratic Party we remembered January 2012, when the party made an attempt to form a coalition with the UPC. The UPC at the time brought 28 points to the table, which according to them had to be agreed upon as a basis to form the coalition. One of these points was that government was to appoint, now councilman, Elvin Henriquez as director of the Housing Foundation. The DP labelled this as political interference in the matters of the foundation, conflict of interest and disregarding proper application procedures. The DP at the time was definitely not in agreement to include such a condition in a governing accord.
Recently, the rumours serviced again that Mr. Henriquez is to become the new director of the Housing Foundation. He is in the meantime Island Council member for Zaandam's UPC party. He, himself, even mentioned it in a previous island council meeting. In this light it becomes clear that when Commissioner Zaandam follows the agreement with Woonlinie, he basically shuts the door for his councilman to become the director of the Housing Foundation. The election will be held March 18th. The chances for Mr. Zaandam to remain commissioner after the elections and Mr. Henriquez to retain his island council seat are very slim if not non-existent. Honouring the agreement with Woonlinie, which has also the blessings of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, means that the appointment of Councilman Henriquez has gone up in smoke.
Commissioner Zaandam found himself between a rock and a hard place. He opted against the interest of the people of Statia in need of decent low income homes and has chosen for the interest of his political friend!
DP Party St. Eustatius
