Will Prosecution investigate and hold the ousted Minister liable for disrespecting the orders of the Governor and motion passed in parliament.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The ousted Minister of VROMI Claret Connor filed a criminal complaint against the candidate Minister of VROMI Angel Meyers accusing him of being the possible person that leaked the Landsbesluit for garbage contracts to the media.
The ousted Minister allgedly wrote his own advice and even changed the date on the advice the Ministry of VROMI submitted to his cabinet in order for him to put the contracts on bidding. The Landsbesluit was signed off on October 30th 2015, where several Members of Parliament in the UPP faction will benefit if they obtained the garbage contracts.
The complaint was filed on Wednesday after it was published again that Angel Meyers, a civil servant working at the Ministry of VROMI will be the incoming Minister of VROMI.
Meyers had already passed the screening process but the prosecution informed the incoming Government that they received a criminal complaint which they have to look into, thus that will delay the swearing in of the Minister of VROMI. If it turned out that the ousted Minister cannot prove the allegations he made to stall the installation of the new cabinet it is left to be seen if the prosecution will follow the letter of the law and prosecute the ousted Minister for filing a false complaint. Hopefully, the ousted Minister who has a history of his own could provide evidence that it is the candidate Minister that leaked documents to the media.
Press Prosecutor Karola Van Nie confirmed to SMN News that they did receive a complaint from VROMI but refused to comment further.
While the Minister chose to file a criminal complaint against his successor in order to keep the candidate Minister out of office, hopefully the Prosecutor’s office will use the same documents the Minister claimed was leaked by the candidate Minister and hold him liable for signing off on contracts that will benefit Members of Parliament from his political party, even though Parliament passed a motion to prohibit Ministers from signing new contracts while the Governor of St. Maarten also informed all Ministers in the Gumbs cabinet that they should not work on anything new but they are only supposed to work on pending matters since they are a caretaker government.
On Wednesday the Gumbs cabinet called in all Secretary Generals and Department heads and held a huge farewell party. SMN News understands that ousted Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs broke down after after giving his closing speech, at one point when the Prime Minister realize his tears were flowing he asked the audience if "Bibi Shaw" was in his gathering to see his state now that he had to vacate his position abrubtly.
The incoming Ministers from the Red, White and Blue coalition are:-
1. William V. Marlin -- Prime Minister
2. Silveria Jacobs --- Minister of Education
3. Richard Gibson Sr. --- Minister of Finance
4. Glenn Daniels --- Minister of Justice (pending)
5. Emil Lee --- Minister of Labor
6. Ingrid Arrindell -- Minister of TEATT
7.Angel Meyers --- Minister of VROMI (pending)
8. Henrietta Doran York --- Minister of Plenipotentiary
