Dear Editor,
I am very concerned about the future of my St. Maarten. As a community-spirited person, I have never witnessed or experienced anything like this in my life. Hurricane Irma brought out the good, bad and ugly in some of our leaders, parliament, government, ministers, and employers when the people needed our help the most.
Government’s first duty is to protect and help its people after any disaster, not to play politics with their lives.
The people should never forget that government is ourselves and not an outside power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not the Governor, Members of Parliament and Government Officials, but the voters of this country.
As Dutch State Secretary of Home & Kingdom Affairs Raymond Knops stated, restoring people's lives is pivotal in the recovery phase. Our main priorities right now should be to create housing, jobs, helping people with building materials with their roof and restoring our business economy.
These upcoming months would be very trying and hard times for our people who are still hurting under these challenging times. This is the time when Government, Private and Insurance Companies, Red Cross, Hardware Stores, Banks, Medical Center, Churches, Community Councils, Community Leaders have to come together and network as one to help our people get back on their feet.
It's amazing to hear the stories from the people of how they have been treated unfairly by the Insurance Companies and some banks on the island in trying times.
Some businesses abruptly changed their customer policy after Hurricane Irma and not paying their workers which is not in the general interest of the people.
This is the time we have to pray, communicate, plan, and put our differences aside and unite as one people to build back St. Maarten and help our people in the recovery phase. Government needs to take the lead in the recovery phase as Representatives of the people and stop the political blame game which just shows the people how unprepared you were prior, during and after Hurricane Irma. We need to stop the selfishness, put aside our egos and start working together to address the pressing social issues that are affecting our people.
As I go in the different districts and listen to the cries of our local people after Hurricane Irma, a lot of our local people are under a lot of stress, no roof, no jobs, no food and government is playing a lot of politics.
Our elected representatives need to communicate their short term, immediate and long-term plans and vision/goals to the people. Right now, we are seeing a lot of ad hoc, reactive decision-making and planning instead of coming with a list of concrete priority projects for the future development of our island and its people.
I am not perfect and have learnt from my mistakes and humble myself during this trying period in the general interest of our people. I pray that some of our political leaders and Representatives stop priding themselves from their mistakes and be more humble during these recovery stages of our island and go out and hear the cries of the people. We need to be more realistic and start governing our island in the general interest of our people.
Around election time, we going to see a lot of quick fixes and self-promotion of achievements of projects for the people. Public Officials should not spend public money to promote themselves, but developing time and resources to help and communicate with our people, understanding their needs and explaining what Government is doing for the people. Government has to be more open and transparent with their priority projects for the people.
I am still to see a constructive concrete plan of action from Government to bring hope to our people after the passing of Hurricane Irma. What is our concrete plan and timeframe to bring back our hotels up to a better standard, bring back overnight tourism, get investors, helping our seniors and residents put back on their roof?
What is our marketing plan to promote our small local hotels? I don't see any creative thinking within Government. Everything is reactive instead of being pro-active of governing this Country. I read in the newspaper of drawings for our local vendors but still the Minister of Economic Affairs has yet to meet with our local vendors of the Marketplace. The local vendors want to hear from the Minister in charge of the Marketplace who represents them instead of the Market Officer.
Good Leaders or Employers have to know how to communicate with their people in these trying times.
Right now, we are seeing a big disconnect of lack of communication and providing information between Government, University officials, Employers and its people. Everywhere I go the people have no clue what the short, intermediate and long-term plans of Government are after the passing of Hurricane Irma.
I also fully agree with the University of St. Martin students that we need to restructure the Supervisory Board of Directors of USM and they should apologize to the students and staff of USM for the way they have communicated the news to the students and staff. The Supervisory Board has to update the Management and staff of USM on the future direction of the University and for them to communicate better to the faculty and students.
Right now no one knows the future direction of the University other than it would open back for a semester, date still unknown to the staff. This has really set back the degree and GED students for this semester in which some of them who need to sit the GED exam in December. USM has gotten away from their vision and mission statement in which the co-Founders the late Dr. Wathey and the Honorable Husang Ansari had established the University.
I also would like to hear from the Honorable Husang Ansari as one of the existing Co-Founders of the University of St. Martin. We need to get back to basics and put a USM Advisory Committee together with the right educational people in place to look at putting a concrete financial solution for USM, improving its curriculum instead of a temporary plan for one semester.
We can't continue to run our local University from semester to semester without a permanent solution. Government also needs to find a permanent solution for our highest learning Institution on the island which has been established to educate, train and develop our people.
In closing, let us come together as one and communicate to help our people get back on their feet. Let’s bridge the gap as French and Dutch Government Representatives under one vision to make our friendly island number one in the Caribbean and the world.
My vision is to rebuild our island to continue to be the number one destination in the Caribbean and the world and to empower our people to live comfortably in their beloved island.
Maurice Lake
