PHILIPSBURG--Opposition Democratic Party (DP) wrote to Island Council Chairman Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards Monday, querying why a December 16, 2009 letter from the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT with comments on the 2010 draft budget had not been forwarded immediately to the members of the Island Council.
Richards received the letter in December in his capacity as Chairman of the Executive Council, and he also received a copy as Chairman of the Island Council.
DP Island Council members only became aware of the letter when it was sent to them last week by the Executive Council as part of the package of answers to questions they had posed in November and December 2009.
DP leader Island Councilwoman Sarah Wescot-Williams said, in her letter which was received by General Affairs on Monday, that her party was astonished that the letter addressed to Richards as Chairman of the Island Council, which functions independently of the Executive Council, had not been submitted to the Island Council members immediately.
She said it was the prerogative of the Executive Council to decide when to submit the administrative answers to and correspondence from CFT and other similar bodies to the Island Council, but it should not have been that correspondences addressed to the Island Council were lumped together and sent out simultaneously with answers prepared for the Executive Council.
This nine-page letter is yet to be forwarded by the Island Council Chairman to the council members.
As part of the CFT agreement, all correspondences are copied via e-mail to the Executive Council, the Island Council, the Finance Commissioner and the Director of Resources to avoid misunderstanding about important timelines. The date of the e-mail is used as the formal date of receipt of the letter.
To this end, Wescot-Williams asked Richards to explain why it had taken almost two weeks (December 16-30) for the letter to be formally registered with General Affairs. She also asked why the letter had not been submitted to the Island Council immediately, and if any other correspondence from CFT on the draft budget existed that still had to be forwarded to the Island Council.
In the CFT letter, it was stated that the committee would formally react by January 18 to the answers given by the Executive Council that should have been submitted by January 14.
On this issue, the opposition leader asked for a copy of the Executive Council's response to the CFT letter of December 16, 2009 and CFT's final opinion on the draft budget.
Wescot-Williams hopes to get answers to these questions before Friday.
The Central Committee meets on the draft 2010 budget on Friday, after a break of over six weeks. The opposition had submitted more than 200 questions about the draft 2010 budget.