Corruption still a major issue in Government…
The leader of the Christian Party Wycliffe Smith is taking a swipe at corruption in government. Smith referred to the four Integrity Report that were conducted on St. Maarten during a period of three years, to say, St. Maarten could easily make the Guinness book of World records for having four Integrity reports in three years. These reports led to the writing of new legislation to establish an Integrity Chamber which is currently on hold. After all this, St. Maarten still finds itself struggling with integrity issues and corruption. The Prosecutor’s office is at the moment investigating cases of corruption such as Immigration fraud, money laundering, and Tax evasion; In addition, Smith says, the General Audit Chamber has accused Government of a serious lack of transparency and integrity when appointing persons to sit on government owned companies boards and Foundations.
Furthermore, even the Ombudsman annual report made reference to the same lack of openness and transparency in Government. Corruption is a moral cancer in every society, but it’s the duty of every Country and the responsibility of every Parliament and government to put mechanism in place to root out the problem in their societies. If government is willing to uphold its own laws and enforce existing laws, St. Maarten would be able to reduce corruption considerably in the civil force and society.
Smith defined corruption in his article as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. And words that come to mind when discussing corruption are money laundering, bribery, extortion or blackmail, nepotism, cronyism, patronage, favoritism, dishonesty, unfairness, gift giving, kickbacks, lack of accountability, integrity and transparency. Transparency is about being open and shedding light on rules, plans, processes and actions. Based on the above explanation it is safe to conclude that there is definitely a lack of transparency in government in Sint Maarten.
Smith used a number of statistic to make his point even the most recent Appointment of the brother of the Minister of TEATT as Director of the Princess Juliana International Airport Holding Company. We were told that because of family ties the Minister of TEATT abstained from voting on this issue in the Council of Ministers. This was done to avoid the appearance of a form of corruption called nepotism. However, this does not absolve the Minister from nepotism, because the way the relationship between government and government-owned companies is structured, a Minister is the share-holder representative and as such the Minister of TEATT is responsible for the airport and her brother is accountable to her.
Regrettably, with all the evidence available of corruption in government, Parliament has remained mum on the issue, whereas it is Parliament’s obligation to ensure that the various appointments occur, according to the rules and legal procedures, in an open and transparent manner says Mr. Wycliffe Smith in his article.
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