Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
Rafael Boasman is the new minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor. File photo Pearl FM
St. Maarten – Rafael Boasman will be sworn in as the new minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor next week Monday. E.V. Sams will become Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication. Claret Connor, who held this position, will move to the Ministry of Public Housing, Urban Planning, Environment and Infrastructure.
The cabinet of Governor Drs. Eugène Holiday announced the appointments yesterday.
With the appointment of the two new candidates the cabinet, that took office on December 19 of last year, is finally at full strength with seven ministers after more than eight-and-a-half months.
The candidates have been nominated by Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs.
“The vetting of the three nominated ministers has not produced any data that could impede their appointment and swearing-in,†the governor’s cabinet stated in a brief press release.
The ministers will take the oath of office on Monday at 3.30 p.m. at the governor’s cabinet.
Boasman is currently the chairman of the supervisory board of telecom provider Telem, where he has been a board member since 2008. He is also the country’s labor mediator. Boasman is a former head of the labor department at the ministry where he will take the top job on Monday.
Background information about the new minister of Tourism and Economic Affairs was not immediately available yesterday. MP Leona Marlin-Romeo, who put Sams’ name up as a candidate for the post, did not react to an email with a request for information.
Rumors that surfaced on a gossip website about the resignation of Finance Minister Martin Hassink fizzled, as UP-leader Theo Heyliger denied the report and Hassink did not make any statement about such a move in Tuesday’s Council of Ministers meeting. The same gossip website reported already twice this year – incorrectly – that the government was about to fall.
