US Party MP Rolando Brison. (File photo)
PHILIPSBURG--United St. Maarten Party (US Party) Member of Parliament (MP) Rolando Brison said on Sunday that his first initiative law is falling behind due to waiting on answers from government.
The legislation to which Brison is referring is a law aimed at authorising government to undertake the proper sale of St. Maarten’s shares in United Telecommunication Services (UTS).
“A total of just 12 questions were posed by Members of Parliament that need to be answered by the Ministers of Finance and Justice. These questions were posed in the Central Committee handling of the draft initiative law, which is aimed at preventing the devaluation of the minority shares held by St. Maarten of UTS,” Brison said in a press release on Sunday.
Brison, who along with several MPs had been off-island last week attending Parlatino, told this newspaper, “after I get the questions, I still need time to prepare the Central Committee report for the public meeting after. Had I received the questions on time, I could have used this while on parliament business. Also, Parlatino was just two days. We could have scheduled the Central Committee continuation around that. They could have even scheduled the budget meeting around the Parlatino schedule.”
The main premise behind Brison’s draft law is that the country risks having what is currently valued at US $13 million in assets reduced to cents on the dollar should government not finalise this negotiation, it was stated in the press release.
“The government had already agreed as shareholder since May of 2016 to sell its shares. Curaçao has completed its part of the process, but almost three years later the government is still dragging its feet and putting millions of guilders of what is the people’s assets at risk,” Brison said. “Here we go again with the government’s irresponsible behaviour putting what amounts to almost $2,000 per household in St. Maarten at risk.”
While the questions were posed in a meeting of Parliament’s Central Committee on June 5, the questions posed to government are already covered in a letter dated May 27.
“Had the government answered the questions posed in my letter to them weeks ago, all these questions would have been covered. Yet to date I still await the official answer to these questions,” stated Brison. “The fact that neither of the Ministers were present at the Central Committee handling of such a crucial law is also very unfortunate, as was pointed out by various MP’s during the meeting.”
He envisions the law paving the way for a three-fold multiplicative benefit to the country: paying back general pension fund administrator APS and taking it out of the low coverage ratio in which it currently stands, staving off a need to raise the pension age to 65; funds being used for the development of affordable housing; and money being available to actually pay police and other justice personnel what they are owed.
MPs, including some members of the coalition, expressed sentiments during the initial handling of the law that the government had “dropped the ball” on this issue.
The law initiated by Brison aims at picking up the ball to prevent a lackadaisical attitude from costing the public millions of guilders, it was stated in a press release.
“This initiative is ready to go and should be moving forward, but once again the government is holding back progress with what appears to be an unwillingness to acknowledge that a member of the opposition is picking up a ball that the government themselves dropped.
“I did not go into parliament to be opposition or coalition. I am here as a Member of Parliament that simply works in the best interest of my people, regardless of which side of the aisle I sit,” he said. “… Government should cooperate with members of parliament and respect the initiative process. The right of initiative is not exclusive to the government or MPs who support the coalition.”
This law would be the third initiative law debated in Parliament, and was completed in eight weeks from initiative to the start of the debate.
“This legal process proves that MPs can indeed present more laws and earn our salary the way we were meant to. And despite the fact that government, in what seems to be with purposeful neglect, hampers the legislative process of parliament, MPs have to keep doing what we can to do our jobs. I, for one, am undeterred, and will continue to hold the Ministers accountable while also keeping the public informed,” Brison said.
