PHILIPSBURG:--- Reporters on St. Maarten tried effortlessly to get further information from the Prime Minister of St. Maarten Sarah Wescot Williams who announced that she initiated an investigation at the Department of National Security of St Maarten (VDSM). On Monday, the Prime Minister said through a press release that she asked the SOAB to conduct an investigation because there are serious indications of malversations at the department.
On Wednesday during the Council of Ministers' weekly press briefing, the Prime Minister said she is still awaiting the report from the SOAB and as such would prefer not to divulge further information on the case. Reporters asked the Prime Minister several times if the head of the VDSM is reachable but she refused to give an answer to the question or further elaborate on what sparked the investigation and how long ago the investigation started.
Prime Minister Wescot Williams also indicated that the oversight committee has been established according to the law but somehow they are expected to hold their first meeting sometime soon. After three years of being appointed it is strange that the committee did not hold meetings prior to now and one would also wonder what role they played prior to the suspected malversations that sparked an SOAB investigation.
SMN News asked the Prime Minister to say exactly when the committee was established and she said it is in the law who should be on the committee but did not say when the actual committee was put in place. The law does state that an oversight committee has to be in place and which representatives from which institutions should be on the committee but that committee based on information reaching SMN News was never established. Therefore, the VDSM had a free hand to whatever they wanted. Wescot Williams said that there is a proposal at the Parliament of St. Maarten to amend that law because she wanted to remove the President of Parliament from the oversight committee, she said the proposal to amend the law has not yet been dealt with even though it was submitted since the Wescot Williams I Cabinet was in place. The Prime Minister further explained that it is awkward for the VDSM to report to her while the President of Parliament is on the oversight committee.
The head of the VDSM is James Richardson, a resident of the St. Maarten. Reporters at the Council of Ministers' press briefing asked the Prime Minister if the investigation currently taking place is affecting the services of the VDSM such as the screening of the Minister who still has to take office. Wescot Williams assured that the investigation is not hampering the work of the VDSM.
It should be noted that the VDSM is not a judicial entity and whatever information they find that looks criminal has to be turned over to the Police. Questions were raised by SMN News and the former Minister of Justice Roland Duncan earlier this year when the Bada Bing video tape surfaced about the role of the VDSM and how long they knew of the tape and kept it.
Another point of concern is that several departments such as the VDSM and Landsrecherche want to handle their own budget but they do not have accountants or anyone that could record the management of their funds.
