PHILIPSBURG--It is three months into 2016 and the country finally has an approved budget for the year. Parliament passed the budget on Thursday morning that saw eight Members of Parliament (MPs) vote for the budget and three abstaining from voting.
One of the eight votes for the budget came from opposition United People’s (UP) party MP Dr. Lloyd Richardson. Motivating his vote for the budget, the MP said he made “some demands” to Finance Minister Richard Gibson that would have been difficult to place in a budget amendment and was told the demands will be addressed. “We are gentlemen in here. I take him to his word,” said the MP.
While MP Dr. Richardson did not say what his specific demands were, during the first round of debate he suggested changes to the subsidy ordinance and had called for Government to simply take what it is owed for the division of assets of the former Netherlands Antilles rather than continue to wait for Curaçao to give the nod.
This was not the first time the MP has voted for a budget while in opposition.
MP Christophe Emmanuel of National Alliance (NA) commended MP Dr. Richardson for “voting for the people of St. Maarten.” He said he always looked up to the doctor and continues to do so now.
Voting for the budget along with MP Dr. Richardson were MPs Hyacinth Richardson, Emmanuel, George Pantophlet, and Rodolphe Samuel (NA), independent MPs Maurice Lake and Silvio Matser, and Parliament Chairwoman MP Sarah Wescot-Williams (Democratic Party).
Independent MP Leona Marlin-Romeo said when it was her turn to vote that Gibson has given her no indication about making any changes to the budget to reduce travel costs and government representation allocation and redirect the money to fund other things such as the neo-natal heel prick. The reallocation of the funds was among the amendments the MP proposed, but later retracted for further additions. Saying she can’t vote for the budget, Marlin-Romeo left the General Assembly Hall.
Independent MP Cornelius de Weever sat in his seat and did not respond when his name was called by Wescot-Williams to vote.
MP Tamara Leonard (UP) left the room before her name was called for the vote. Leonard, earlier in the session, had proposed the meeting be suspended until Monday to allow the three MPs from UP who were not present to have an input on the vote. Her bid was not successful after the request was voted down by MPs of the Coalition of Eight.
Absent with notice were MPs Franklin Meyers, Theo Heyliger and Johan Leonard.
United St. Maarten Party (USP) leader MP Frans Richardson was also not present for the meeting.
The 2016 “shotgun” budget, as Finance Minister Gibson described it, stands at NAf. 442 million in expenditures and NAf. 463 million in income. The difference between the two figures is the buffer Gibson wants to create to keep all ministries in line and to have a surplus to service the country’s existing debts.
The draft budget does not include any income based on promises to take measures to generate more income. This approach is a departure from all previous budgets dating back to 2010. Those budgets have accumulated some NAf. 60 million in deficits, because additional income streams projected over the years had never been realised.
Compounding the situation were debts owed by Government to Social and Health Insurance SZV and General Pension Fund APS due to unpaid premiums. Some NAf. 200 million in debt was accumulated this way. The passage of the budget will enable Government to start servicing some of that debt.
Along with the budget, three motions tabled by Samuel were unanimously passed by Parliament. All three motions were requests to the Council of Ministers. One called for guidelines to be put in place to mandate drivers in the public transport sector to have their identification visible. The second motion called for guidelines to be put in place for the reintroduction of mandatory military service and third was a call for the creation of a job secured scholarship fund.
The budget handling took place in the plenary session on February 29 and continued on March 1, but was stalled on March 2 due to the arrest of MP Matser by the National Detectives. His arrest had left the Coalition of Eight without the needed eight MPs to form a quorum that day. Opposition MPs did not sign in for the March 2 meeting. They later said they would facilitate the resumption of the meeting on March 10.
That session went ahead and was then suspended “until further notice” by Wescot-Williams before ministers could answer questions posed by MPs. The meeting was recalled for Thursday on Wednesday afternoon after Matser was released by the National Detectives.
