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THE HAGUE--The Kingdom Council of Ministers does not feel the need to steer the integrity issue in St. Maarten politically. It merely wants to prevent the safeguarding of integrity from becoming politically susceptible, said Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk on Friday.

The Kingdom Government decided on Friday to start the process for a so-called General Measure of the Kingdom Government ("Algemene Maatregel van Rijksbestuur" AMvRB) to establish an Integrity Chamber in St. Maarten. (See related article.)

The exercise to restore and safeguard integrity in St. Maarten requires a truly independent entity, one that is completely free of political influence. This is especially important in a small community like St. Maarten.

"Integrity is always more complicated in a small community. We need to set the Integrity Chamber at some distance from government, so it can do its work free of any political influence," Plasterk said. This means that, contrary to what St. Maarten wants, the St. Maarten Parliament cannot have the final say on matters concerning the Integrity Chamber, in Plasterk's opinion.

The integrity reports prepared last year by two independent committees confirmed that conflicts of interest and abuse of power happened throughout the St. Maarten Government.

"The conclusions were harsh. Things are not in order, aspects that are affecting government. It becomes impossible to tackle this when the St. Maarten Parliament can decide whether the actions by the Integrity Chamber are inadequate," said Plasterk.

The Integrity Chamber, which would consist of independent persons with expertise in different backgrounds, would be able to carry out investigations in suspected cases of, for example, conflict of interest situations or abuse of power. This includes the gathering of information and interviewing people. The information may be turned over to the local Prosecutor's Office if the case in question requires follow-up.

According to Plasterk, St. Maarten has insufficiently proven that it is capable and willing to truly tackle the integrity issue. He said the reports by the Wit-Samson Committee and the Oosting Committee/PricewaterhouseCoopers were six months old and the St. Maarten Government had not taken "acute action," but merely some cosmetic decisions to "save reputation." "That is not the way to go about it. This issue requires a solid solution," he said.

An independent Integrity Chamber is in the best interest of the people of St. Maarten, but also of the Dutch Kingdom. "It is unacceptable to have the current situation continue. It is not good for the people in St. Maarten and it casts a bad light on the Kingdom," he said. He added that bad decisions in government resulted in the wasting of public funds for which the people ultimately had to foot the bill.

The minister again stated, as he did in an interview with this newspaper last week, that he preferred to reach a joint solution with St. Maarten. He said the National Ordinance St. Maarten had prepared to establish the Integrity Chamber contained some "very good and well-thought-out elements" that were certainly worth considering.

Plasterk denied that the imposing of an AMvRB on St. Maarten undermined the country's autonomy. "I HOPE to convince people that the autonomy of the Netherlands is also not undermined when our Minister of Finance has to reduce the budget deficit on the order of Brussels [the European Union – Ed.]. It doesn't mean that you give away your autonomy. To the contrary, it only serves to strengthen you as a country," he said in an interview with The Daily Herald and the Volkskrant newspaper.

"I HOPE that integrity in government becomes part of the public domain, a way of thinking. The most important thing is to tackle this issue. The point of departure is to prevent integrity violations from reoccurring. I don't have another motive than to do the right thing for St. Maarten."

Plasterk said he was under the impression that St. Maarten Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs was also keen to solve this matter. He said he had been in contact with Gumbs up to Thursday and there had been a lot of contact between the technocrats in Philipsburg and The Hague. Plasterk said the Netherlands would be investing several millions in the integrity trajectory. "Quite a substantial investment."