New Political Parties have to accept responsibilities for their investments in registering their political parties.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Prime Minister William Marlin announced at the Council of Ministers press conference on Wednesday that the Landsbesluit to annul the Landsbesluit to call electons on February 9th that was submitted by former Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs was submitted to the Governor on Tuesday. Marlin said he did not meet his own self-imposed deadline which he said last week would have been done on Friday or Monday. The Prime Minister said that the LB submitted by the former Prime Minister is not yet in effect, even though the LB was submitted on October 29th, one month after the Prime Minister received a motion of no confidence from parliament. He said what was mentioned in the October 29th LB will not solve the problems of ship jumping. Therefore, the LB his government submitted on Tuesday outline several things, one being the country is financially strapped and still does not have a balanced budget for 2016 therefore the country cannot afford new elections now, while new elections will not solve the problems of ship-jumping unless there is electoral reform. Marlin said while he submitted the LB on Tuesday he did not hold any discussions on the matter with the governor after the LB was submitted therefore he cannot say if the LB will be accepted by Governor Holiday and if the governor will sign it off. Marlin reinforced his previous statements where he mentioned several times before that holding elections now will not solve the issues St. Maarten faced for almost seven weeks after the Gumbs cabinet was given a motion of non-confidence. Marlin said that if the Governor signed off on the new LB, his government will then establish a committee two weeks after the signing off on the LB to study and amend the electoral law, and the country’s constitution to ensure that no other government would misuse article 59 of the constitution.
Prime Minister Marlin explained that the same government who claimed they want to stop ship jumping benefitted from it when two members from the red, white and blue coalition lost its majority in 2014. Besides that he said the UPP/De Weever/LRM/ USP coalition did not mention anything on electoral reform in their governing accord even though they claim elections would solve the ship jumping crisis. Marlin further explained that those persons (new party) leaders that are complaining at the moment cannot lay the blame on his government for the expenses they endured to register their political parties. He said people can register a political party at any time they want and it does not mean it has to be done just prior to an election.
Council took decision to annul the extension of Garbage Contracts --- Contractors was notified.
Prime Minister William Marlin informed members of the media on Wednesday that the Council of Ministers took a decision not to extend the contracts for the four garbage collectors whose contract will expire in April 2016. Marlin said that the former Minister of VROMI Claret Connor hurriedly signed off on the extension for the four contractors for a period of five years without holding a public bid. He said that the department of VROMI is now preparing to hold a public bid where eight contractors will participate, while a separate bidding process will be held for the cleaning of trenches and roadways. Marlin said in the past the cleaning of trenches and roadways were including in the garbage collection contracts but the in-roads were not being cleaned often enough. Besides that separating garbage collection for trenching cleaning will give young entrepreneurs an opportunity to have a stable income which will also remove young men from the roadsides because they would be busy cleaning the sides of the roads and the trenches constantly. Marlin said the four contractors were notified in writing that their contracts will not be extended and that a public bid will be held prior to the contracts being awarded.
FBO building permit will be approved and sign off within short.
Asked if his government approved the building permit for the Fixed Based Operations (FBO) project for the Princess Juliana International Airport, Marlin said the permit has not yet been signed off on but it is likely to be done shortly. He said while going through all the documents that were left behind by the former government he did see the FBO building permit request and the reasons which the former Prime Minister and Minister of VROMI gave for holding back the building permit. Marlin said that the same persons the former Prime Minister and former Minister of VROMI asked for estimates are the ones who already gave an advice on the cost of such projects, besides that he said just days before the government changed a presentation was made to the Members of Parliament where it was stated that the contractor that was awarded the contract for the FBO project gave a quotation which was $400,000.00 less than their estimated price.
Council still appoint COO and CEO for GEBE --- Supervisory Board asked to re-submit their nominations to speed up the process.
When asked by SMN News if the Council of Ministers took a decision on the appointment of the two candidates that were nominated by the Supervisory board of GEBE for its managing board, Marlin said so far he did not see the nomination letters and other documents the Supervisory Board of GEBE submitted to the former government. He made clear that the documents might be somewhere in the administration but he personally did not see them, therefore he requested the Supervisory Board to send him a cover letter along with the documents they submitted previously to the former government on the persons they nominate in order to speed up the process. Marlin also confirmed that he is aware of the decision taken by the Supervisory Board to suspend its Chief Financial Officer Rene Gartner and the decision taken by the board to appoint a temporary manager pending the appointment of the Chief Operations manager and Chief Executive Officer.
