SIMPSON BAY:--- Residents of Simpson Bay marched into the house of Parliament on Wednesday to silently protest against what they term as abuse of power and injustice.
One of the residents told SMN News that a parcel of succession land that is occupied by one Marlon Harley for some 28 years operating a mini boat yard. The resident of Simpson Bay said that Halley has legal authorization from one of the nine heirs that inherited the property from Melford Lejuez. The resident said of the nine heirs only one of them is living on St. Maarten and that heir gave Halley legal authorization to use the property, further the plot of land was destroyed twice by hurricanes and Halley invested his monies and refill the property since most of the heirs are living outside of St. Maarten.
The resident said that in the year 2011 Member of Parliament Theodore Heyliger approached the Kadaster office to obtain information about the property and he eventually took one of the heirs who lives in Aruba. That heir was identified as Kelly Lejuez whose legal representative was another heir identified also as a Lejuez. The Simpson Bay resident said that court case was halted because none of the other heirs including the one on St. Maarten were notified and the one that appeared in court claimed that Halley was operating on the land illegally. However, shortly after that a famous businessman "Gioa" paid Kelly Lejuez some $550,000.00 for the property while the other heirs were left out.
The residents said that in June 2014 Minister of VROMI and Member of Parliament Maurice Lake issued a MB to the Gioa family stating that they are the owners of the parcel of land while a publication was made in one of the local newspapers to have Halley remove his boats and other equipment from the property. The Simpson Bay resident said that Simpson Bay is a residential area and the MB that was issued by Minister Lake states it's a commercial area. "This is part of the Simpson Bay development plan that Theo Heyliger and Maurice Lake wants to execute, the residents of Simpson already objected to having the area turned into a commercial area since they will not accept for a cruise/deep water pier to be built in their area, while they will also not allow any Minister or Member of Parliament to abuse their power for their own benefit. The Simpson Bay community already signed a petition and have held several meetings objecting to Heyliger and Lake's plan yet the Minister of VROMI saw it fit to issue an MB stating that Simpson Bay is a commercial area. The resident further explained that what they cannot understand is that the lawyer that represented government in this particular case was Jerone Veen whose name came up to be the Minister of Justice some weeks ago. The Simpson Bay resident said that the Parliament of St. Maarten is busy discussing the instruction given to the Governor regarding the appointment of Ministers and every MP that make up the coalition is talking about the constitution and justice and the Kingdom breaking the law, but they want to know who is to be blamed for the actions of the Kingdom.
Click here to view the documents including the MB issued by Minister Maurice Lake.
