As I have complained over and over during the past few years, the media on St. Maarten needs to be much more critical of the way stories are written in the daily papers. Now we that know the workers are aware that they have outspoken preferences to certain politicians and political parties but I don’t blame them. It is the job of the editors to make sure that stories are balanced and objective. This is definitely not the case in St. Maarten.
Last week, newly sworn in Minister Maurice Lake signed off on two projects, Senior Citizen homes and the cleaning of trenches. Nothing wrong with that but everyone knows that there is no way that Minister Lake could have finalized these projects in such a short time. Minister Lake is simply carrying out the finalization of projects that Minister Marlin initiated.
Now the media is not there to defend or praise Minister Marlin but there should have been mention that this is not the first time that the trenches in St. Peters were cleaned and that a housing project could not be finalized in such a short time, which was the impression the media gave. It is almost commonplace for politicians to take credit for work they had little to do with and that is why the media should be there to remind us, the public, who really should take the credit or at the very least let us make up our own minds who to credit.
Upon assuming office Minister Marlin had requested for an advice to be prepared to grant a contract in St. Peters to clean the trenches, the advice coming from VROMI was for a contractor outside of St. Peters to get the job. Minister Marlin insisted that the young men of St. Peters should get the opportunity to contribute to their environment and Topxic N. V. was grated the job against the advice from Infrastructure Maintenance. In the end the local contractor was commended by the people of St. Peters for his excellent work. Additionally, the Minister also insisted that the young men in Sucker Garden, St. Peters, Dutch Quarter and Cole Bay/Cay Bay be awarded the same opportunity. All done by Minister Marlin.
Minister Marlin was the first Minister / Commissioner to fight for the young men of the districts in this manner. May I remind you, that Minister Lake was the former Adviser to Minister Heyliger, and before that he also worked with Commissioner Heyliger for over 10 years, where were the local contracts then? In those days only the large contractors got jobs and the local contractors were sitting on the side watching.
The head of Infrastructure Maintenance was requested several months ago to prepare another advice to grant a contract for structural trench cleaning to take place in four major districts, Cole Bay, St. Peters/South Reward, Sucker Garden/Philipsburg/Point Blanche and Dutch Quarter/Oyster Pond/Middle Region, each to be granted a two year maintenance contract to keep the trenches clean throughout the entire year. There were also other pending district improvement initiatives being planned by Minister Marlin.
It is good to see that the new Minister is stepping right into the shoes of the former Minister and has decided to award a contract to Topxic N. V. as well. It is now hoped that the same will be done for the other areas where the former Minister had signed contracts for trench cleaning. It will also be interesting to see if this current Minister will continue to put the progress of the people ahead of personal interest of the party as we have become used to with the DP/UP coalition. So far he has started off in the right direction.
Kendall Dupersoy