Brinkman wants Parliamentary
inquiry into scope of corruption
PHILIPSBURG--Controversial Dutch Member of Parliament (MP) for the PVV party Hero Brinkman wants a parliamentary inquiry into the scope of corruption in the Netherlands Antilles.
His call was made in a paper he presented at a press conference.
The long-awaited “corruption paper” entitled “The Antilles – a Mafia within the Kingdom?” and purporting to detail cases of corruption, is based mainly on newspaper articles and information from other public sources.
It paints a picture of nepotism, self-enrichment and criminality among government workers and politicians.
In the paper, Brinkman lists the names of 120 allegedly corrupt politicians, government workers and officials. Curaçao’s left-wing nationalist party leader Anthony Godett heads the list of allegedly corrupt local politicians.
The paper also lists what are presented as 170 concrete examples of corruption. According to Brinkman, this is only “the tip of the iceberg.”
Brinkman’s latest haranguing of the Netherlands Antilles has already drawn some sharp criticism, with President of the Antillean Parliament Pedro Atacho saying he was not impressed with the paper.
“It’s obvious to me that all the cases he has summed up have been dealt with by Justice Authorities in the Antilles. Suspects have been prosecuted and sentenced. This proves that the Justice system on the Antilles is doing its job.”
Atacho said he would like to see Brinkman being “man enough” to go to the Prosecutor’s Office if he believed he had proof of corruption, instead of bringing out “Hero’s news articles.” He said furthermore that Brinkman and the PVV party could better spend their time attending to corruption taking place in the Netherlands. He said he believed several books and newspaper articles could be written about those cases.
“That’s all I’m going to say about the matter. I have more important matters to attend to concerning Curaçao and the Netherlands Antilles, instead of participating in this media circus,” Atacho said Thursday.
Acts of corruption concerning St. Maarten Brinkman noted in his paper included a incident several years ago when then-MP Marcel Gumbs was accused of beating up someone in a restaurant.
He also referred to the Intaquin water and sewerage project affair, party leaders Sarah Wescot-Williams and William Marlin admitting to having received funds for political campaigning from a Dutch construction company, and a donation of NAf. 225,000 from the St. Maarten Government to SummerFest, one of whose organisers was Wescot-Williams’ son.
Brinkman also referred to a case in which a commissioner personally had walked into the police station to deal with a case involving a woman who had been detained because she had no documentation and later the Lt. Governor called and said a residence permit had been signed for her.
Roy Marlin’s name too is stated in the report. He is not being investigated for allegedly owning a gas station, a roundabout, a hotel and several houses.
Louie Laveist and the alleged 600 work permits he had on his desk, and the St. Maarten government not paying any pension premiums to the pension fund are also stated by Brinkman as acts proving corruption.
The arrests of and investigations concerning police officers Churchill Marsdin, Marcel Loor, Giovanni Sprott, Deborah Hodge and even former prosecutor Cor Merx are also mentioned in the report.
It is not clear how Brinkman’s paper will affect the biannual meeting of Antillean and Dutch MPs on Kingdom Relations POK scheduled to start on Monday. At a Dutch/Antillean consultation in Curaçao in January, the talks were aborted when Antillean MPs denied Brinkman access to the Parliament building after he had referred to the islands as “a corrupt den of thieves.”
President of the Antillean Parliament Pedro Atacho threatened to cancel the meeting after conservative VVD MP and chairman of the Commission for Antillean and Aruban Affairs Willibrord van Beek rejected his proposal for a code of behaviour for the talks. However, the Permanent Committee for Netherlands Antilles and Aruban Affairs has agreed to use the code of conduct of the Dutch Second Chamber during the POK.
