PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk could not say whether or not he could convince the Kingdom Council of Ministers not to impose higher supervision on St. Maarten as planned. The Kingdom Council was supposed to discuss this matter last Friday but withdrew the agenda point to give Minister Plasterk the opportunity to further discuss the concerns of the Kingdom on his working visit here on St. Maarten. At a joint press conference held on Monday afternoon Minister Plasterk and Prime Minister of St. Maarten Marcel Gumbs said that the discussions held with Minister Plasterk and his delegation were fruitful. Prime Ministers Gumbs said that besides the other topics that were discussed there were three main topics that they discussed intensely, those are the installation of a "dispute committee", integrity and the draft budget of 2015.
In regards to the dispute committee, Minister Plasterk said that this is mentioned in the statuut but there is none in place therefore the Kingdom and the countries have to work jointly on installing such a committee. Even though the Minister of Kingdom Relations admitted that such a committee has to be installed he said that he has to further discuss the matter with Curacao and Aruba prior to getting the ball rolling on installing such a committee. Prime Minister of St. Maarten Marcel Gumbs said the three countries namely St. Maarten, Curacao and Aruba discussed this matter during the IPOK meetings, besides that Gumbs said St. Maarten held talks with the two other overseas countries because they too had disputes and they also had nowhere to turn to have these disputes regulated. When asked by SMN News how soon St. Maarten and the other two countries could see the installation of such a committee, Minister Plasterk said he is of the opinion that when the Inter-Parliamentary meetings are held in April 2015 something should happen during those meetings.
With regards to the integrity issues, Prime Minister Gumbs said the document St. Maarten produced has to be reviewed and possibly merged. He said St. Maarten's technicians will start working on this immediately. SMN News reporter asked Minister Plasterk if he thinks he could convince the Kingdom Council to hold off on imposing higher supervision on St. Maarten based on what he has seen and discussed with the representatives of St. Maarten. Minister Plasterk said he simply does not know how the discussions will go when he returns to the Netherlands. When asked if St. Maarten is out of the 'woods' or not the Minister of Kingdom Relations said he just doesn't know.
As for the draft budget 2015, Prime Minister Gumbs said that this will be discussed in Parliament on Thursday. Minister Plasterk also mentioned that the Minister of Finance Martin Hassink did quite a bit of work on St. Maarten's finances and he still has a lot more to do. He also said that Minister Hassink mentioned he wants to collaborate with the Netherlands and that is something he will see takes place.
Minister Plasterk said he held discussions with Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs, the Council of Ministers and Parliament. He said he also had a meeting with the Minister of Justice.
Minister Plasterk also mentioned that just last week when the Chiefs of Police and Ministers of Justice met in the Netherlands he attended those meetings as a guest and one of the departure points was that St. Maarten has to produce a plan of approach by March 1st, 2015 because one of the concerns of the Kingdom is International Crime.
At the end of the press conference Prime Minister Gumbs presented Minister Plasterk with a small token since it's first meeting since taking office that he met with the Minister of Kingdom Relations and Overseas Affairs. The token turned out to be a book on the "salt pickers" written by Will Johnson of Saba.
