Expectations aren’t exactly high for the Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation IPKO starting today, Tuesday, at Simpson Bay Resort. The general feeling is that these twice-yearly gatherings produce a lot of discussion, but very little action.
And when the delegations of the Netherlands, Curaçao, Aruba and St. Maarten do agree on something concrete like establishing a Dispute Regulation, it takes years for the Kingdom Council of Ministers to execute their wishes. Even the draft law to that effect now finally on the table is not without controversy, but probably the best achievable compromise at this moment.
As is customary, the meeting was preceded by tripartite talks among the three Dutch Caribbean countries to try to coordinate their positions. There was some confusion because Chairman of host St. Maarten’s Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Committee Theodore Heyliger was absent due to recent travel and his intended replacement Vice-Chairman Chacho Peterson fell ill.
There should be no similar issues for today’s IPKO, which will also be looking into St. Maarten’s continued recovery from Hurricane Irma, dump crisis and affordable housing shortage, among other things. Politicians in The Hague have been critical of the limited progress made, but see the local government in Philipsburg and its lack of expertise as the main culprit.
However, by choosing the World Bank to manage the Trust Fund it was the Dutch cabinet that automatically subjected the reconstruction effort to strict regulations and procedures that tend to have a delaying effect. An example is GEBE needing public tenders for relatively simple trenching and other works that normally wouldn’t require a bidding process.
But rather than playing the blame game, elected representatives would do well to instead search for common ground and see what they can do so projects that are crucial to the future wellbeing of the island’s population could somehow be fast-tracked and their positive socioeconomic impact felt soonest. This is most definitely not the time for unproductive and useless bickering.
