WILLEMSTAD--National Alliance (NA) parliamentarians have issues with the draft amendment to the Islands Regulations of the Netherlands Antilles ERNA that are necessary for the holding of early Island Council elections, possibly in June.
NA parliamentarian George Pantophlet said he was concerned that the wording of the proposal (Aanbieding) for the draft amendment and the draft (Ontwerp) itself had some differences that were tricky and could cause issues later.
The draft amendment was discussed in the Central Committee of Parliament last week Tuesday. The amendment was prepared under the guidance of Constitutional Affairs Minister Roland Duncan (NA) and vetted earlier this year by the Legal Affairs Department of the Central Government.
The proposal states that "in the mean time" each Island Council of the Island Territory of Curaçao and St. Maarten could be dismantled separately.
The draft states that the Island Council of the Island Territory of St. Maarten can be dismantled "in the meantime."
Pantophlet said the word "meantime" was not written as two separate words in the draft as it was in the proposal. "We need a guarantee that St. Maarten is not left in the cold. Curaçao already has its infrastructure in place if it chooses to leave now. St. Maarten will be left in a precarious situation, because our infrastructure still has to be put in place."
The NA faction has asked for a more detailed explanation of Article 16A Sub 1-4 of the draft ordinance amendment.
"We also wanted to know why preconditions were set for St. Maarten to extend its Island Council from 11 to 15 members, because as far as we know the three previous times the Islands Regulations of the Netherlands Antilles was amended there weren't any preconditions set," Pantophlet said.
He said his faction definitely needed to study this very technical document properly, because after its approval by Parliament and then the Kingdom Government, amending it again might not be easy.
"It has taken us almost 10 years to get here and the faction of the National Alliance has always said that we were not ready. Don't forget we need to have a good starting position. Now that we are closer than ever to becoming Country St. Maarten, we should not allow ourselves to be pushed into something that will not benefit the people of St. Maarten. Everyone must cooperate with us to accomplish this feat," he said on Sunday.
