PHILIPSBURG:--- The Prime Minister of St. Maarten the Honorable Sarah Wescot-Williams gave a candid interview during her weekly Radio Program One on One with the PM on 98.1 Pearl FM where she addressed both her disappointment in certain Members of Parliament regarding their reaction to the issue of the Royal Decree and her personal view regarding the push by the Dutch Government.
"As much as we have said that it is not about the Investigation of integrity and as much as I have initiated steps to ensure integrity I have on occasion been on the verge of saying ok, fine, let them do their investigation. Let Minister Plasterk and Prime Minister Rutte do whatever they need to do in order to let them get the political mileage they are so desperately looking for. I have been at this point because I do not need this battle and if there is one person who has nothing to fear with regards to an integrity investigation into the Government of St. Maarten it is the Prime Minister. So during the past few weeks I have sometimes been on the verge of saying fine let them have their investigation.
"However, whenever I reach to that state I know that what they are requesting of us is not right and I will not just roll over and play dead. Today I am in the position to stand up against this and if I will allow a meddling in the affairs of St. Maarten today the person who will be in my place and who might face these same issues tomorrow will have an uphill battle because I would have allowed it. That is the bottom line to all of this. We have offered the Dutch alternatives to come to a mutual agreement because we understand what they requested and we wanted to collaborate. I have been in the process of Constitutional Change and I have never believed that the first few years would be have been easy ones for St. Maarten as a country but I did believe that we would be given the time to focus on building this country. The odds were always stacked against St. Maarten albeit that we were the ones at the forefront of Constitutional change. We insisted and persisted but the doubts against St. Maarten becoming a country were significant. I have been told to my face in the Netherlands that there are municipalities in the Netherlands that have bigger populations than St. Maarten but I have always maintained that this is about us developing as a people, growing from stage to stage," stressed Prime Minister Wescot-Williams.
The Prime Minister also stated that she considered it a pity that certain members in the Opposition in Parliament could not resist bringing up issues that were again irrelevant to the discussion regarding the Dutch Government meddling in St. Maarten's affairs and again sending mixed messages in that regard. "Last Thursday I asked the Parliament to hold a meeting so that I could inform them on what was occurring. I informed the Members of Parliament as I informed the Dutch Prime Minister regarding the steps we are taking in order to ensure integrity and the subsequent acts by Prime Minister Rutte and Minister Plasterk. We wanted to inform Parliament so that they could get together and take a position one way or another. I therefore regret that some persons, including MP Marlin, could not resist bringing up all types of things that were irrelevant to the discussions and which again reflected his political agenda and I sincerely believe that this is a real pity. I got quite upset that MP Marlin used the meeting to bringing up matters regarding what is taking place at the National Security for example. MP Marlin had the audacity to insinuate that there is a witch-hunt with regards to certain situations within the VDSM and again sketching false situations. My mother has always said to me to not always spit in the air because it will fall in your face. The wrong signals are being sent. Some Parliamentarians are being negligent in their authority as a Members of Parliament and it is a pity that the opportunity has been lost for Parliamentarians to ask the right questions and to hold the Ministers accountable instead of once again politicking," concluded the Prime Minister.
From the Cabinet of the Prime Minister