Caretaker Finance Minister Richard Gibson Jr. during Wednesday’s Central Committee meeting on amendments to the 2017 budget found it necessary to fault this newspaper for supposedly creating the impression he favours selling the government-owned companies and other properties, while he was merely answering the question what would happen if government ran out of money.
Following is – verbatim – the relevant passage in The Daily Herald’s story of Thursday, December 15, headlined “Gibson says there’s no reason for panic” and including direct quotes, based on the preceding day’s weekly press briefing:
In addition to funds in the bank, he said St. Maarten also has wealth that can be used to acquire funds for expenses Government may have. “We own several different companies and we own all of the shares in all of those companies. If it comes to a crisis point we can sell some of those shares to partners to attract funds.
“It’s not the ideal way and I am not advocating and propagating this, I am just sharing that the end of the road is not the NAf. 26 million, but we have wealth that we can throw into the field if it’s necessary. From all promises and from all indications and discussions we have had so far, all of that is not going to be necessary, because the Netherlands has already expressed their preparedness to provide us with budgetary assistance – they have mentioned an amount that is not cast in stone, but an amount for 2017, which is 42 million euros.”
That is literally what the article said, so readers can make up their own mind as to who suggested what. Perhaps some misconstrued all this to mean the Minister wanted to sell the assets, but that’s not what was written.
Several Members of Parliament (MPs) subsequently joined the chorus to lambast the only St. Maarten paper left for supposedly misinforming the people, their allegations mostly lacking specifics and made without any clear justification. Gibson also said this “misrepresentation,” as he called it, occurs too often.
What really happens way too many times is politicians and public administrators making statements that have an undesired effect and then trying to backtrack. In doing so they frequently resort to the age-old trick of turning around and simply blaming the messenger.
