Since we became a country after October 10, 2010 I have been observing carefully what is more important to our Government, whether it’s St. Maarten needs or its wants.
After analyzing this question for more than one year I have come to the conclusion that this Government’s priority is more its wants than its needs.
I will give two extremely important areas for the building of a strong nation, which is education and health care. Proper Public Education because of the importance of ensuring that our generations are prepared to govern and to manage their country and Proper Public Health Care because a nation that prospers must be healthy in order to survive.
These two responibilities of a Government is a need and not a want. It’s essential that every Government ensure that its people is properly educated and in good health. Education without health is not in the best interest of its people and neither health without education. They both work together.
We must ensure that we have the best teachers and professors that must guide and educate our future generation and we must have the proper doctors and specialist that can give proper medical care to our people.
We thank God that we have an educational and medical system set up where we can send people abroad to further their studies and for further medical care respectively.
However both education and health care abroad is very expensive and therefore only the rich persons or the elite persons with the right contacts would be able to obtain proper education and proper medical aid.
I would like to advise Government to take these two responsibilities serious by creating a study on what it would costs Government to send our students abroad to study and the cost of what Government spends on medical care sending patients abroad and then evaluate whether these areas would be least expensive to establish here on St. Maarten. This is the way that we should build our nation, with proper vision. This is a way of creating equal opportunities for all and not just a few. I conclude by saying that our Government should make our needs a priority above our wants.
Jeffrey Richardson