Member of Parliament George Pantophlet says that the editorial in the Daily Herald of Tuesday December 20, 2011 hit the nail on the head
The reason that the Corporate Governance Council is in place had to do with the fact that for many years this coalition government supported by the former Democratic Party presently United People Party previous Democratic Party has been ignoring good Corporate Governance. The Member of Parliament says that it is not his intention to confuse the readers but he is only trying to express and magnify the confusion that is taking place in government today. It is the same Democratic Party mentality. What do Member of Parliament Mr. Leroy de Weever and his colleague Mr. Johan Janchi Leonard think the need for establishing a Corporate Governance Council came from? The Daily Herald hit the nail on the head when it said and I quote "They must know that the Corporate Governance Council did not have its origin in someone waking up at the end of a bad dream and deciding to foist a Corporate Governance Council on the backs of the St. Maarten tax payers" and another quote "The Corporate Governance Council is the product of disgust over successive St. Maarten Governments’ persistent non-adherence to universally recognized and accepted best practices" end of quote. Do we have to remind my good colleague Member of Parliament Mr. Leroy de Weever and Member of Parliament Mr. Johan Janchi Leonard who was in government consecutively for the last 10 years? Do we have to remind them that General Auditing Chamber of the former Netherlands Antilles never approved the Financial Statements for the last 10 years? Do we have to remind them that the Financial Administration of which their Minister of Finance Mr. Hiro Shigemoto was head for 10 years found itself in such a chaotic situation that even now we have not received approval by the Dutch for the 40 million guilders owed to creditors? On a related issue the Member of Parliament Mr. Leroy de Weever mentioned and let me paraphrase that the General Auditing Chamber has more important things to do than checking to see which civil servant did or did not get a raise and whether they were entitled to it or not. Probably the Member of Parliament should be reminded that in a report of the General Auditing Chamber of the former Netherlands Antilles mentioned that the Personnel Department was in a mess? Information on personnel was incomplete. That information on personnel was not even in their files? That there were persons no longer in government employ but this was not reflected in their files? This government wants to remain in the Kingdom but not adhere to the conditions. Establishing the High Councils of state was one of those conditions. If the Member of Parliament wants to send them home then change the Constitution, get the two thirds majority including approval from the Dutch. Let me insert here that all of them are qualified to hold their positions. Back to the matter of the Corporate Governance Council, if the Member of Parliament Mr. Leroy de Weever does not have to bring a motion to have the Council disbanded. The Corporate Governance Council has asked Parliament on two occasions to take a decision on what they want to do with the institution. The ball is in Parliament’s court and we know who has the majority. Finally had governments followed the laws such as the Comptabiliteits voorschriften of the island territory of St. Maarten we would never have to sign agreements which made the Committee for Financial Supervision necessary (Consensus Kingdom Laws) on matters that we could have taken care of ourselves. Thank you Daily Herald the Member of Parliament says he could not have written it any better. You hit the nail on the head.