Minister Claret Connor still Director of the Chamber of Commerce – Is this a conflict of interest?
PHILIPSBURG:--- The ousted Minister of VROMI Claret Connor is hell bent on getting certain things done before he is forced out of office. The Gumbs cabinet got a motion of no confidence on September 30th 2015 by a majority in Parliament. While the Gumbs cabinet has been engaging in a tit for tat fight with the Governor and has so far refused to abide by the decisions made by Governor Eugene Holiday, they have gone a little bit further by stating that they will not even respect the advice given by three judges that the governor sought advice from on how to interpret some articles in the Country’s Constitution. While it is clear to everyone that when a Minister or cabinet receives a motion of no confidence the best and most honorable thing for them to do is to submit their resignations in order to protect the image of the country and themselves. However, it is clear that the Gumbs cabinet intends to test the constitution and the Governor of St. Maarten.
Minister Claret Connor chose to continue business as usual and instead of dealing with pending matters as a caretaker minister he is busy writing Landsbesluit that still has to be signed off by the governor of St. Maarten. The Governor St. Maarten already informed the Gumbs cabinet that due to the motion of no confidence they are now caretaker Ministers and their only task is to deal with pending matters. Even the LB they submitted to the Governor to dissolve the parliament of St. Maarten is not considered pending matters.
The last LB SMN News published is the one Minister Connor wrote by himself without the advice of the Secretary General and the signature of the SG approving the LB he wants Governor Holiday to sign off. That LB has to do with the transfer of the VORST property to APS.
One would think that all Ministers know that they must follow procedures and the letter of the law whether appointed or elected by the people.
SMN News got a copy of another LB Minister Connor prepared where he intends to transfer the development plan of the Chamber of Commerce to the Chamber of Commerce. While this might look like business as usual it must be noted that Minister Connor did not resign from the Chamber of Commerce where his position as Director is blocked just in case he would need to go back to his old job.
Well after the motion of no confidence was passed the Minister made sure he made up an LB for the Chamber of Commerce to have the development agreement even though the Chamber has enormous back taxes to have to be paid off. That LB and agreement was booked in at DIF on October 14th 2015.
The LB which does not have the signature of the SG and there is no advice from the SG will ultimately benefit the Chamber of Commerce where ousted Minister Claret Connor will return when he is removed from office.
Below is the LB and agreement that SMN News obtained and while it is customary for some newspapers to steal documents from SMN News and pretend that it was sent to them by the Gumbs cabinet, yet they did not use it until SMN News published it. This one is no exception we expect the two newspapers that got a 0 rating from Transparency International to also steal this document and make their own news item out of it.
