Dear Editor,
I recently received a piece of information that made me even more pessimistic about our island’s future. It made me realise that the way some of our politicians interact with each other is a lot worse than we thought.
There were representatives of a US-based company vacationing here, who informed a particular minister about a solution for the dump situation. I understand the solution would have been provided (almost) free of charge. This solution – some sort of chemical that is used on landfills in the USA and elsewhere – would prevent fires from flaring up on the dump. The representatives only needed to know the size of the site.
The minister in question requested this information from a minister of a party not his own and was told to: ”Go f**k yourself.” This behaviour is nothing less than disgraceful, disrespectful, extremely immature and totally unbefitting a representative of the people. I now wonder how often that phrase is used when the cameras are not rolling and the people are not listening. In order for our island to move forward, our current government needs to be purged of all the dross that’s in there.
This also goes to show that if a potentially successful project/idea/proposal is initiated by a minister or Member of Parliament of an opposing party, it is abruptly rejected. They might even go as far as thwarting the attempts of the minister or MP who is trying his or her best to accomplish something good for the people, who are paying their salaries.
It would be ideal if ministers and Members of Parliament of all parties would work together for the wellbeing of the people, but unfortunately, this seems not be the case. As long as a particular party does not get the credit for a project, it won’t go through. I wonder how often this has happened before. What a sad situation we have in our government.
The adverse effects of the toxic fumes of the dump on the health of the people who live and work in Philipsburg and the immediate surroundings are well known and cannot be refuted. There used to be a holistic Asian doctor here who had a fair number of customers. He told a couple of his customers that St. Maarten is a unique and beautiful island, but he would not remain here long because of the dump. “If only the people of the island knew….” he said. He abruptly left the island sooner than was planned, because his office was broken into and all his medical equipment stolen.
Three days from today we are going to the polls again, that is, those of us who still have a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, this time will be different; maybe this time around we will choose the right ones.
Every year or every other year, (in most civilized countries it’s every fourth year) we hear the self-same things over and over and over. They are going to help senior citizens; raise the pension money, fix or build new schools; provide meals for school-children introduce a new (affordable) tax system; increase the minimum wage; improve the infrastructure, fight crime; create jobs; bring our overseas children back home and a lot more.
Even those smooth and persuasive talkers, who have been in government forever and are considered fixtures in the Parliament Building, make these empty promises. It makes one wonder what they have been doing for the last two or three decades.
Some of them are now talking about independence. I can easily come up with a few reasons we should not entertain such a thought. Firstly, we are renowned as a country with a corrupt government. Certainly in the Netherlands, who, I am happy to know, has ways of finding out who the corrupt ones are; the other islands of the Kingdom and thanks to a video that went viral, even countries on the other side of the planet, like New Zealand. If our government is so corrupt now, how much more corrupt will it become when we are independent? Who would be keeping a watchful eye on them? Who would they have to give account to?
Secondly, since we became a country in October 2010, we have not had a stable government. Our representatives have proven to us no less than five times that they are incapable of providing stability.
Thirdly, we all know how very skilful they are when it comes to squandering the people’s tax money. Who will they go to for monetary aid after independence? Will they approach the Netherlands whom they will have rejected? The truth is that Holland would be relieved to get rid of us, because our corruption is tainting the Kingdom’s reputation.
Will they continue to make large loans to refill the government coffers, so they can resume their squandering? They will eventually not be able to repay these loans, then what? Increase the already-heavy tax burden?
There is a wise saying that goes: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. I’m beginning to think this does not apply to the people of St. Maarten. It’s taking us forever to wake up from our deep slumber. We can’t go on sleeping forever, people. If we don’t want positive change for ourselves, let’s at least do it for our children.
I strongly urge every voter to take time out this weekend to seriously think about these things before you go to your voting booth next week.
Let’s continue to pray that God will bless St. Maarten with a competent,
greed-free, corruption-free and stable government. HE is the only one who can accomplish that.
Clive Hodge
