Dear Editor,
Over the years I have learned that not because someone is a known robber, every robbery that was committed was committed by that known robber. But say one say two you can’t blame the public for suspecting that known robber.
We just had Irma and Maria and we know the devastation which they brought about. Sad to say, nine months later we still have a problem deciding who is going to trust who with whose money to build back what.
It is no secret that over the years “money to fix back” or to build has ended up in the wrong hands and too often the project that moneys were destined for never got off the ground. Every time I drive over the A.T. Illidge Road in the Garden of Eden area I ask myself why was not that project completed?
But what is worse is that we have to send away people on emergency courses to learn construction in order to be able to assist with the rebuilding of Sint Maarten after Irma and Maria. That means that our people in government do not even feel the shame to know that they have been there so long and in comparison have not done anything to educate its people.
The proof is in several Heralds. The proof is in having to relax labour policy to be able to permit a vast amount of people in construction to come to rebuild Sint Maarten. I cannot say “help rebuild” because we do not have any of our own. The proof that we have not done anything about the education is in the fact that some years ago the Dutch government gave us thirty million to build a polytechnical school and nothing has become of that. So, no tradesmen.
What happened to Milton Peters College? By the way, the schoolchildren – yes, these are real schoolchildren – said that they have state-of-the-art electrical and carpentry equipment just sitting there in the M.P. College.
Now that there is proof that we do not have Sint Maarteners who we can use to build back the country and we want relaxation of the labour laws, there are some lingering thoughts and questions. Hoilland is very interested in our immigration (protecting our borders); Holland did not follow up on that thirty million for the polytechnical school. At least I did not hear anything to that effect.
We know who was the commissioner in charge at that time. We need to relax the labour policy on foreign labourers because we need tradesmen. We also know who always comes out smelling like a rose no matter how many governments are toppled.
All of this brings back to mind the title of a popular Dutch TV series “Waar is de mol?” I keep getting these flashbacks. How much is thirty million in comparison to the amount mentioned in the case of the former head of the VDSM
Something else just came to mind also. Because of transparency of government, should not the participants of APS/SVB be kept abreast of the progress of the bailout of the new government building? I believe there are still a few of us who read. Just put it in writing somewhere, it will not stay hidden. What a relaxing atmosphere it would create if there was genuine transparency of government.
Russell A. Simmons
