Philipsburg: --- SMN News has been reliably informed that the leaders of the coalition government formed by the United Peoples Party and the Democratic Party are at loggerheads. The source said the UP leader and leader of the current government Theo Heyliger is not in favor of some of the actions that are taken by the Democratic Party leader and Prime Minister of St. Maarten Sarah Wescot-Williams. SMN News further learnt that the Prime Minister is making decisions that would affect the entire country and is allegedly not informing her coalition partner who has the most seats in government. One of those decisions the Prime Minister allegedly made was to give the Dutch government assurance in Holland during her last visit there that the 2011 budget will be balanced before the December 15th deadline.SMN News further learnt that the Prime Minister did not inform Heyliger neither the Minister of Finance who travelled to Holland one week later to seek an agreement with the Dutch government to allow St. Maarten to have an unbalanced budget for at least three years.
On Tuesday, the council of Ministers in their weekly meeting discussed the budget of 2011 and the amount of cuts that would have to be made for the budget to be balanced. One source said the budget still has to go to the council of advice for a decision to be taken. They said that the way things stand St. Maarten can be in deep trouble because if the cuts are made then developing country St. Maarten would be impossible. "Cutting monies from all the Ministries will definitely affect hiring and having the various infrastructures in place for St. Maarten to build its country. Furthermore, if the National Alliance was in government they too would have had to deal with this mess the source explained. We are doubtful that the NA would have been able to solve this problem but I would like them to bring forward their proposals on fixing the budget."
SMN News learnt from well place sources that the coalition government has been requesting assistance from the former commissioner of finance Xavier Blackman to see if he is able to find a solution to the budget dilemma. The 2011 budget has a deficit of 130M guilders while St. Maarten has to make the budget amendments from October 10th to December 31 2010 for the 2010 budget.
SMN News learnt that while several persons have approached Blackman in the name of "country sake" the Minister of Finance is yet to contact him personally for advice. Blackman during his term in office as finance commissioner made the news almost every day about the stance he held with the CFT who was dictating what St. Maarten should and should not do with its budget. The constant confrontation with the CFT earned Blackman a vote of no confidence by the Democratic Party in the island council. SMN News further learnt that Blackman would under no circumstance assist the current government with the budget dilemma since they did not appreciate his hard work and diligence in preparing a realistic budget for St. Maarten.
In the meantime, the Parliament of St. Maarten also has to submit its budget to the Department of Finance. While Parliament is making decisions that will have financial consequences for St. Maarten, the President of Parliament is yet to sit down with the MP's to draft its budget. Currently Parliament does not have its own finance department and formulating a budget would have to depend on the expertise of the senators. Senators from the opposition openly expressed their concerns on the amount of financial decisions that are taken by parliament without having a budget in place. One senator was overheard saying that St. Maarten did not need to be part of Parlatino this year. This she said could have waited until 2011-2012 when there is a budget. Another senator agreed saying that St Maarten will be part of ten committees where two members would be in each committee. Parliament also took a decision on Tuesday to send a delegation of two to Saba for Saba day on Friday. While the President of Parliament had taken her own decision to travel to Barbados to attend the funeral of Barbados late Prime Minister. "All of this will affect the finances of parliament and the president of parliament already brought in her campaign manager to work in parliament. The question is who will pay him and from which budget" the senator asked.
The National Alliance faction refused to send a representative on behalf of their faction to Saba saying that it's a waste of monies. The persons that are assigned to go abroad do not represent the factions in parliament instead they are supposed to be representing parliament. SMN News also learnt that the United Peoples Party senators are at loggerheads with the President of Parliament Gracita Arrindell. The source said Arrindell is not following the advice of her faction and that one of the senators already indicated to her campaign manager Terrence Rey who is working in Parliament that the UP faction will replace her in the near future. SMN News further learnt that at least two senators from the UP faction and one from the DP faction in parliament wants Arrindell to get rid of her Public Relations officer and office manager Dorothy Lake fearing that she would leak information to the leader of the National Alliance William Marlin. SMN News learnt that the DP faction wants the position for the Prime Minister's sister Olga Williams who worked in Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles for a number of years. It should be noted that Lake is a civil servant whose salary is guaranteed, she worked under the former commissioner of education and now Prime Minister Sarah Wescot Williams in the education department and former commissioner of culture now senator Louis Laveist in the culture department before working as special advisor to William Marlin when he led government for 15 months.
SMN News also learnt that the President of Parliament already indicated to the leader of the United Peoples Party Theo Heyliger that he is a Minister and not an MP and that he should not meddle with the affairs of Parliament.In the meantime, SMN News understands that the current situation has the leader of government and Minister Theodore Heyliger overwhelmed since according to the source Heyliger is not getting anything to move forward. The source said that Heyliger already made open remarks that he regretted forming a government so quickly without thinking about the consequences that follows.
When contacted for a comment the Minister and leader of government Theo Heyliger did not deny neither confirm the statements. He said he did not want to stir up trouble.
