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THE HAGUE--Issuing another instruction to St. Maarten, this time in the area of Justice, does not have the preference of Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk. He would rather strengthen St. Maarten's Justice System and improve integrity together with the local government, he told the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament on Wednesday.

"That doesn't have my preference," Plasterk replied to the question of Member of the Second Chamber Roelof van Laar of the Labour Party PvdA, who asked the minister whether a new instruction for St. Maarten was being planned, as it was clear to him that St. Maarten's politicians so far had not shown any effort to implement measures to fight corruption and to improve integrity.

Plasterk has been preparing an action plan to strengthen St. Maarten's Justice System, a plan he already announced in the Second Chamber on October 1. He confirmed that this action plan would be discussed by the Kingdom Council of Ministers soon, but did not mention a specific date.

The next meeting of the Kingdom Government takes place this Friday. The agenda of this meeting is never disclosed, but it is generally known that the action plan for St. Maarten will be discussed.

Plasterk was willing to give some pointers about his action plan, which is being drawn up on the request of the Kingdom Council of Ministers, during Wednesday's debate in the Second Chamber's Permanent Committee for Kingdom Relations. The general objective of this plan is to strengthen the Justice System on the island.

Part of the plan would be strengthening of the Prosecutor's Office in Philipsburg, the Kingdom Detective Team RST and the setting up of a special white-collar crime unit from the Netherlands to combat corruption and integrity violations. This unit also would encompass government-owned companies and the private sector, Plasterk said.

He expressed his desire to carry out the action plan in conjunction with the St. Maarten Government. He said St. Maarten needed to understand that having a Council of Ministers of which the members complied 100 per cent with the integrity and good governance requirements was to the benefit of the country and its people.

So far, the St. Maarten Government had not indicated its willingness to cooperate with the in-depth screening of the candidate ministers by the St. Maarten Governor ordered by the Kingdom Government on October 17.

"The government isn't too inclined," said Plasterk, adding that Curaçao had had the same reaction three years ago when it received an instruction to get its budget in order, but once the instruction was carried out, Curaçao had been proud of the accomplishment of having more stable finances.

"I have faith that we can do this in consensus with St. Maarten. Carrying out the action plan together with the new government has my strong preference," said Plasterk. He announced that staff of his ministry would be travelling to St. Maarten shortly to give content to the proposed action plan that the Kingdom Government will be handling soon.

Plasterk said steps being taken by St. Maarten to improve integrity would be included. He stressed that "something substantial had to happen" because the recent integrity reports had shown that the integrity violations were too serious to ignore.

Van Laar gave Plasterk the benefit of the doubt and supported his idea to try to execute the action plan together with Philipsburg, but urged the minister not to shy away from giving St. Maarten another instruction. Van Laar said he was not too hopeful that the island politicians would tackle the issue voluntarily. "I don't see even the start of such an undertaking," he said.

Van Laar was highly critical of St. Maarten's attitude to blame The Hague.

"Politicians have pointed their arrows in letters, motions and throbbing press releases at the true culprit: Dutch politics. As if we did it, as if we were enriching ourselves at the expense of the St. Maarten people. As if we sold permits to the highest bidder. As if we used the harbour company and the Central Bank to make money disappear. We are the cause of all misery if we were to believe the St. Maarten politicians," he said.

The PvdA, in any case, supported a new instruction if that proved to be necessary in the best interest of the people, said Van Laar. "The people deserve a solid government and decent representatives. A new instruction to tackle corruption and fraud along the lines described by the minister in the budget debate makes sense. The PvdA will in any case strongly support that instruction," he said.

Member of the Second Chamber André Bosman of the liberal democratic VVD party was critical of the response by St. Maarten's caretaker Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams that the government would not cooperate with the extensive screening of the candidate ministers ordered by the Kingdom Council of Ministers.

"St. Maarten's current government doesn't feel the need to improve integrity or to implement more transparency. That much is clear from the response of the current government. We can appropriately conclude that the Kingdom Charter can go into the wastebasket, the shredder, if no follow-up is given to the instruction. In that case we have a new constitutional model," said Bosman, referring to his proposal for a commonwealth construction for the Dutch Caribbean countries.

Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) pointed out that all parties in the Second Chamber agreed that the integrity violations in St. Maarten were unacceptable. He said this common thought should serve as a warning to the "wrong people" in St. Maarten with "sneaky plans."

According to Van Raak, an important point had been reached where the Kingdom Government had to decide whether to take the bull by the horns or to take a lackadaisical attitude as it had done for decades. "The question is whether we will do it or not," he said. He urged Minister Plasterk to "follow the bad money," as this would expose the roles of those who were involved in corruption and money-laundering.

Van Raak and Bosman said the recent developments in both Aruba and St. Maarten showed that the Charter had become untenable. "The Charter is no longer a squeezing corset, but it is about to burst," said Van Raak.

Bosman said it was clear that relations in the Kingdom were being increasingly "squeezed and scraped."

Plasterk said he had a dual approach where it came to the relations in the Kingdom: unbending and hopeful. He said he would be unbending in the area of good governance, but did not want to let go of the HOPE that it was possible to find common ground to cooperate and work on a better future for the people in the Kingdom.

The ministers and the Members of the Second Chamber present at Wednesday's meeting expressed compassion for the recent flooding in St. Maarten and wished the island much strength in restoring the damage that was done by both the flooding and Hurricane Gonzalo. Plasterk said he had called both Wescot-Williams and Governor Eugene Holiday over the weekend. He said the Dutch marines in St. Maarten remained available to provide assistance where needed.