PHILIPSBURG--There was no quorum for Monday’s plenary session of Parliament to establish the new membership for the legislature’s permanent and ad hoc committees and for the Latin American Parliament Parlatino committee.
It was a shortage of signatures, not Members of Parliament (MPs) that stalled the meeting. Fourteen of the 15 MPs were present in the General Assembly Hall for the meeting, but only seven were signed in.
The seven were members of the Coalition of Eight that is now the majority in Parliament. The missing MP was Silvio Matser, who was absent with notice. His absence was communicated by United St. Maarten Party (USP) MP Frans Richardson to Parliament Chairwoman MP Sarah Wescot-Williams when she opened the session at 10:30am, 30 minutes after the official start time.
MPs of the United People’s (UP)-led coalition were present for the meeting, but did not sign in to form a quorum.
After Parliament’s General Secretary read out the names of the MPs who had signed in, Wescot-Williams closed the session.
The lack of quorum in the morning session caused the cancellation of the meetings of the 11 permanent committees that had been called to appointed committee heads and deputies. Until the membership of committees is approved in a plenary session, the committees cannot function properly.
The Democratic Party (DP), headed by Wescot-Williams, said in a press release on Monday night that when 14 MPs “sat around,” but only seven signed the attendees’ list, “the only duped ones were the taxpayers, who pay all 15 members a full-time salary to defend the very same taxpayers.”
The DP said that every half hour wasted by MPs cost taxpayers NAf. 900 (15 MPs x NAf. 60). “This amount is close to what some persons in our community earn monthly after deductions. It equals the school fee for others. For yet others, it equals the monthly cost for day-care,” the party added.
Monday’s meeting was not about political mileage, the party said. It was about ratifying the membership of the different committees of Parliament. However, like the October 1 meeting with the same agenda point, it was cancelled because there was no quorum due to the “old and outdated political practice” of MPs attending meetings, but not signing in.
