Island Council to appoint
new commissioner today
PHILIPSBURG--The Island Council will assemble in a public meeting today to appoint Maria Buncamper-Molanus as a Commissioner. However, she will be stripped of the TelEm Holding portfolio. Also, the motion of no confidence against her will no longer be applicable.
Buncamper-Molanus tendered her resignation on June 18 and although Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards had said that it would be “an odd situation and confusing for the people if Buncamper-Molanus were to be presented again for the position of Commissioner,” the decision to reappoint her was taken on August 26 by the Executive Council, consisting only of the governing Democratic Party (DP).
“What was wrong at TelEm has been corrected and her spouse, who had been on the board of directors, has resigned,” DP leader Sarah Wescot-Williams said on August 20, justifying her party’s decision to present Buncamper-Molanus for reappointment.
Taking everything into consideration, the effects and implications of any option and the feeling of the members of the DP, the party decided to reappoint Buncamper-Molanus, Wescot-Williams said.
In explaining why DP had taken more than two months to arrive at a final decision to reappoint Buncamper-Molanus Wescot-Williams said the party simply had needed the time to arrive at its decision. “No other explanation for it.”
Buncamper-Molanus resigned just before the June 18 Island Council meeting, knowing that opposition party National Alliance (NA) would table a motion of no confidence in that meeting because of her “blatant” conflict of interest as Commissioner of Telecommunication. The conflict was linked to the appointment of her husband Claudius Buncamper to the board of supervisory directors of TelEm.
In addition, Buncamper had signed a letter on behalf of The Sky is The Limit Foundation, a foundation he had founded and which the Commissioner chaired, requesting a financial contribution of US $25,000 from TelEm.
NA leader William Marlin called the Commissioner’s decision to tender her resignation a “poor attempt” to convince the opposition to take the motion of no confidence off the table, which it did not do.
NA pushed the motion through the Island Council (passed with five votes in favour and four against) because the party believed that, after the Island Council had been on recess and everyone had forgotten about the incident, Buncamper-Molanus’ decision to resign would be rejected after internal consultation and she would continue in office.
However, the motion did not prevent this scenario and NA has never presented a proposal for dismissal as a follow-up to the motion. Minutes after Buncamper-Molanus’ resignation on June 18, Wescot-Williams indicated that Buncamper-Molanus would be asked to reconsider her position.
Buncamper-Molanus hinted that, if requested, she would stay on as Commissioner. “I will work for the people of St. Maarten,” she said.
Referring to the motion of no confidence, Wescot-Williams said: “The motion of no confidence is a motion of the opposition. This is nothing unique, it happens all over all the time.” She said the motion had passed because NA had had more members present in the meeting than DP. Two DP members were off-island at the time.
