SMN News has been reliably informed that parliament would lack close to Naf.100.000.00 to meet its needs by the end of 2011. Monies are needed for legal fees, travel expenses and the hiring of staff. The source said while parliament will be meeting again on Friday in a Central Committee meeting to debate some amendments to the 2011 budget, parliament they said will have to meet again before the end of the year for a second budget amendment. The intention of the ruling coalition is to get at least Naf.100.000.00 more so that parliament would be able to meet its expenditures.
SMN News learnt that the two largest factions in parliament namely the United Peoples Party Faction and the National Alliance are suffering from the budget woes, since these two factions are supposed to have Naf.200, 000.00 each for the hiring of staff and that money they said is not available.
While Parliament, the main organ of government is having problems with finances the source said the Council of Ministers have lavish monies at their disposition even though the budget has not yet been signed off. Members of the Council of Ministers are traveling almost every week and while the Ministers are obligated by law to notify parliament of their travel plans, that is never done. On Friday afternoon, the Council of Ministers were supposed to attend the central committee meeting to discuss the budget amendments but four of the seven Ministers were off island, namely Prime Minister Sarah Wescot Williams, Minister of Justice Roland Duncan, Minister of Education Rhoda Arrindell and Minister of Economic Affairs Franklin Meyers. Those that attended the meeting were Deputy Prime Minister Theo Heyliger, Minister of Health and Labour Cornelius De Weever and Minister of Finance Hiro Shigemoto.
Parliament would also need to have monies for legal fees since the legislators would need to pay attorneys who would be working on the laws to govern St. Maarten. Members of Parliament also need to have their tickets paid for as well as their daily travel allowances to participate in meetings overseas.
There are currently two trips scheduled before parliament closes off for the summer. A delegation is expected to travel on Thursday to Holland to attend meetings with Kingdom Affairs and inter-parliamentary relations committees and to Mexico on June 21st to attend a Parlatino meetings related to education, labor and justice.
Leader of the National Alliance and Member of Parliament William Marlin said he raised this issue with the chairlady because to date members of parliament never met neither have they debated a budget for parliament. Marlin said he does not know if the budget of parliament was decided upon by the presidium but he already indicated to the chairlady of parliament that being part of Parlatino has severe financial consequences for parliament. Marlin said parliament has to decide whether or not they will continue to take part in the Parlatino meetings since there are severe financial constraints facing parliament.
Besides the budget woes, SMN News learnt that members of the National Alliance still cannot obtain a key to enter the new parliament building for them to work. The source said the new assistant to the management team of parliament Benjamin Kelly was supposed to make copies of the key some two weeks ago and to date no one knows what is the delay.
The source said the only Member of Parliament who can enter Parliament after hours is Romain La Ville since he knows where the key for the shutter of the new parliament building is hidden. However, La Ville was forced to stand up outside of the Parliament building Wednesday morning because the parliament building was still closed at 10:00am and he could not find the key. SMN News further learnt that La Ville was locked out of parliament at 3pm one afternoon. It should be noted that Romain La Ville is the only parliamentarian who is on the job daily.
Leader of National Alliance William Marlin confirmed that he gave Benjamin Kelly monies to duplicate keys for the National Alliance faction members since Kelly claimed that he does not have any petty cash available to him to duplicate the keys.
Marlin said Kelly later informed him that the key shop does not have the type of key in stock so he could not get the duplicated copies of the key for the shutter. Marlin said right now members of the National Alliance faction are being locked out of the building after hours. He said he is one of the persons that are being affected by this because he works best at night.
