~ I have never celebrated the firing of a civil servant~
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of VROMI Egbert Jurendy Doran said when questioned about the decisions he took since taking office that he has been putting out fires upon fires. Those fires include the Alegria affair, Over the bank land distribution, the bidding process for the garbage contracts, and the Ombudsman report not to mention NV GEBE and its continued saga since the black byte cyber attack.
Doran had to fire the Secretary General of VROMI when he began investigating the Alegria water rights promises. He said that firing a civil servant isn’t something he celebrated because losing that person has left a mark on the ministry.
He admitted that he has learned from certain mistakes or decisions he took but lamented that we are all humans.
With regards to the appointments of the Supervisory Board of members to NV GEBE, the Minister made clear that he did not appoint anyone since he is not the shareholder representative for the government-owned company. Doran said the appointment of the six members was done collectively by the Council of Ministers.
Doran said that over the past weeks very crucial and indebt meetings were held with the Supervisory Board of Directors of NV GEBE, he said those meetings will continue later today Wednesday and the public of St. Maarten will be updated on the decisions taken by the Shareholder of NV GEBE.
Asked how the various scandals he has had to deal with affected his tenure as the Minister of VROMI, Doran said his tenure is not yet up but admitted that the constant negativity surrounding the Ministry has hindered the Ministry’s effectiveness.
He said after the outing of the fires he does have a set of things planned that he wants to be executed. He said that there are a number of things in the pipelines that civil servants want to be done but they need to get over the hurdles before the various plans and projects can be done.
Doran said despite the controversial issues that have taken the forefront the ministry has done quite a bit. He noted that the constant negativity has demotivated his staff but hoped to highlight their efforts in the very near future.