PHILIPSBURG--When the 2010 Central Government term ends, so will Antillean Justice Minister Magali Jacoba's career in government.
The minister hopes to return to teaching in the Netherlands Antilles or Holland after the planned dissolution of the Antilles later this year.
"I want my rest again; so I hope I will do this part very well," she told The Daily Herald. She said she didn't plan to take a vacation between changing careers. "I hope to deliver something good for the countries St. Maarten and Curaçao and the other islands, and then do other things that I love to do."
Minister Jacoba succeeded former Minister David Dick, now Curaçao's tourism commissioner, last August after he suddenly left the Central Government to join Curaçao's Executive Council. This week marks seven months since she became minister.
Her first challenge came within days of taking the oath of office. She arrived here for her first official visit to the Windward Islands and police sergeants, backed by their unions, confronted her about overdue promotions. Since then she has had to navigate problems at the prisons and police stations in the Antilles, discuss progress on the road to country status for St. Maarten and Curaçao, and grant hundreds of requests to grant illegal immigrants temporary legal residence under the Brooks Tower Accord (BTA).
Jacoba said the hardest job since she had taken office was steering the BTA process for legalising undocumented persons living in the Netherlands Antilles. "We implemented it like two months after I became minister," she recalled. "Discussing with all the islands about one thing that's so big and so complex; I think that was the biggest challenge."
Reiterating her approval of BTA's success, she continued: "I'm really glad how the development of this project went." BTA ran for six weeks from November 3 to December 15 and more than 10,000 persons applied throughout the Antilles.
The minister said cooperating with unions and keeping problems with workers from hurting Justice services was the second biggest challenge. "You have to communicate with them a lot," Minister Jacoba said about the unions, citing this contact as the reason strikes had been averted. "We are constantly in communication."
She said helping the five islands toward constitutional change had been sobering. It is about walking the thin line between supervising these island territories as they establish ministries and learn self-governance, and interfering in the future countries' responsibilities, the minister said.
"You are minister of the islands, but you have to let them do their thing, because they are becoming countries," she said. "The other three islands have chosen a different constitutional approach."
The 60-year-old Netherlands Antilles constellation is scheduled to disintegrate in less than seven months, leaving two autonomous countries and three Dutch municipalities: Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. Much of the job of the new Central Government, which officially takes office March 26, is about guiding the islands to their new statuses.
Jacoba said she wanted to leave office while she was still passionate about governing, before the job became stale. "I don't think someone has to stay in the same function for a long time," Jacoba told this newspaper. "Otherwise, it will become routine."
Jacoba has taught at high schools in Curaçao and universities in the Netherlands. She has also worked with the Central Government in education. She won't be taking a break because she's not used to taking time off. "My last vacation was in 1999," the minister said.
