PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — During a joint press briefing with her colleague MP Sarah-Wescot Williams on July 18th, MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten, expressed her concerns about numerous pending meetings and the lack of timely responses from letters to Government within the legal timeframes set out in the Rules of Order of Parliament.
“Just last week alone, my office sent out reminders to three individual Ministers”, Heyliger-Marten stated in a press release issued on Tuesday afternoon.
According to Heyliger-Marten, the Hon. Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion missed a June 7th deadline, one that he himself had set on May 15th, to respond to a letter about removing taxes on overtime for justice workers that he received from my office on April 21st.
She also stated that a response to a letter she sent to the Hon. Minister of Education, Culture, Youth Affairs and Sports Rodolphe Samuel back on March 20th, 2022, so more than a year ago, is still pending as well. This letter is about alleged serious misconduct of Board Members of the Philipsburg Jubilee Library.
“And the third reminder my office sent out last week was to Hon. Minister Leo Lambriex of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport, and Telecommunication, reminding him to respond to my letter regarding safeguarding St. Martin’s food security and economic diversification in light of developments within the Dutch Kingdom and globally”, Heyliger-Marten said.
“And last but certainly not least, are two pending responses from the Hon. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs to my letters regarding changes to the election ordinance dated November 29th, 2022, and the vetting of Kingdom legislation against international law dated April 3rd, 2023.
So in addition to a backlog in meetings called by the Presidium of Parliament, we are seeing an ever growing backlog in responses from the Council of Ministers to Parliament. This makes it almost impossible for Parliament to perform its duties and prevents the people that it represents to receive transparency on how their tax money is being spent”, Heyliger-Marten concluded.
