Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
PHILIPSBURG--"Get on-board" to approve the "home-grown" draft ordinance to establish an integrity chamber for St. Maarten "after certain changes are made." This was the call issued by United People's (UP) party Member of Parliament (MP) Maurice Lake to his "fellow colleagues" in Parliament.
He said in a press statement if the ordinance is left hanging "... we will be talking integrity for another six months without anything happening for the people and moving St. Maarten forward ... if we don't approve our own draft ordinance to establish the integrity chamber it will open up the road for the General Measure of Kingdom Governance."
Lake is "in favour" of the draft ordinance tabled in the Central Committee of Parliament by the Marcel Gumbs Cabinet two weeks ago, but with changes.
"My main concerns of the draft ordinance are article 1, 5, 15, which are related to the protection of our people and putting local professionals who understand our culture and way of life," he said. "... Article 15 of this administrative law, has to state that our own Integrity Chamber employs a secretary-general who is a local professional."
"Our Integrity Chamber will protect our people and will address transparency and accountability. If the Dutch Government says no to our proposal then we know they are not working in good faith with St. Maarten," he said.
Lake continued: "We have to pass our draft ordinance now and get back to basics and start executing projects and addressing the people's needs for the next three and a half years and beyond. Right now, we are only addressing integrity issues and distracted by The Hague instead of ready to execute the people's work."
Lake supports the recommendations of the integrity report prepared by the Judge Bob Wit Committee "I fully support that St. Maarten investigates integrity issues and that breaches found are addressed.
The Integrity Chamber was a recommendation from the Wit report, pointed out Lake, who served as a minister in the Wescot-Williams Cabinet III when the report was commissioned.
"As an elected representative of the people, I don't have no issue of addressing and putting a more improved structure in place to address our integrity issues. It's time we move on and start working on other important issues of the people, "MP Maurice Lake said on Wednesday.
