PHILIPSBURG – Minister of VROMI Christophe Emmanuel addressed members of the media in Wednesday’s, June 21, Council of Ministers Press Briefing.
He proudly announced that the staff of the Ministry VROMI created an app for the Ministry. “The younger ones in the Ministry came up with a concept and idea that will now empower the people of St. Maarten to bring across all their views, ideas and concerns where ever they are on St. Maarten,” Minister Emmanuel stated.
“So you don’t have to now wait until you can write in the newspaper, or throw it up on Facebook. One, two, three in the morning. Anytime, anywhere, once there’s something concerning you, you can snap a picture, upload it to the app and send it directly to the Cabinet, directly to the Minister, directly to the Chief of Staff, directly to the Public Relations Officer,” the Minister informed.
He thanked the team who created the app. “I really appreciate the work you have put into it.”
“A lot of people were concerned about the black hand, and I try to tell them the symbolic reasons of what it means, which is empowerment, because more often, we see a number of individuals come to the Cabinet, come to the Ministry on Fridays, with their concerns, and we would say ‘why didn’t you take a picture, why didn’t you bring something?’ And they’ll be like ‘I didn’t know, and I don’t know how.’ And this is one of the main reasons why we went this route,” Minister Emmanuel explained.
“Now you have the opportunity, you have the means, you have the avenues, where it is simply ‘I can get it done and send it direct’ and it can be monitored. You can leave a comment,” he continued.
“What it is, is putting the Ministry in the hands of the people of St. Maarten. So no longer do we have this sort of out of reach, out of touch, or you’re reaching a certain position and no longer can I get ahold of you. Now each and every one of you, once you have a smartphone that has access to the internet and computer, you’re in touch with each and every individual at the VROMI Ministry,” Minister Emmanuel stated.
The Minister also addressed growing concerns about the increasing number of car wrecks along the Soualiga Roadside. “Now I know many people are very concerned about the growing ugliness when you pass on Soualiga Road. The car wrecks that seems to be growing and growing and growing, and every time we sort of get control of one thing, something else comes up, but I want you to rest assured that it has our full attention, and we are looking into it,” he assured.
“I just want to again thank everyone for having the patience with us, and we will be tackling a number of issues. As you can see we started, not really as yet with the road markings, but it’s coming online, in that it will be getting done very, very soon. Because of the weather, we felt we would have been having rain this week, so it was postponed, but it will start very soon, but you can see the divide as we started to paint them again, and we’ll be taking a very serious look at our road network in the future,” Minister Emmanuel concluded.
