Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
There can be little doubt that the conclusions of the "Integrity Inquiry into the functioning of the Government of St. Maarten" first reported on in Saturday's paper are reason for concern. To a certain extent the general reaction coming from the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament in The Hague (see today's related story) is therefore understandable.
On the other hand, outgoing Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams and Justice Minister Dennis Richardson had a point in their official reaction on the report to Dutch Prime Minister and Kingdom Council of Ministers chairperson Mark Rutte: The relatively young country lacks means to deal effectively with integrity breaches and really could use more help from the Netherlands in that sense.
One concrete example is that almost a year of discussions on requests for assistance to strengthen the National Detectives and Prosecutor's Office so they can better tackle corruption and fraud have not yet led to tangible results. Regarding the apparently very low fiscal compliance, the Tax Department is evidently in need of additional support as well.
That does not mean all else is fine and dandy by any stretch of the imagination. There are clearly serious problems and addressing such with an Integrity Implementation Plan as intended by the caretaker cabinet seems like a good start.
Of course, the next government probably will have its own views on the matter. It's nevertheless important to execute the recommendations in not just this latest report, but also that of the Wit-Samson Committee and the integrity assessment by Transparency International (TI); among other reasons, for the local tourism economy to maintain its essential customer and investor confidence.
At the same time, whatever duly-elected parliamentary majority and the cabinet it appoints should be afforded the benefit of the doubt and allowed to govern based on the incoming coalition's policy priorities. Talk of direct intervention at this point is not only premature, but downright undemocratic.
The government-owned companies too must be given a fair chance to improve on their considerable shortcomings. Sunday's announcement that an integrity board had been established for the harbour, while obviously not enough, is at least a step in the right direction.
