St. Maarten has to show it
can manage country status
PHILIPSBURG--State Secretary of Kingdom Relations Ank Bijleveld-Schouten has reiterated that the incident concerning the conflict of interest incident with Commissioner Maria Buncamper-Molanus was no reason to draw consequences for the constitutional change process of the Netherlands Antilles. However, she also has pointed out that Curaçao and St. Maarten have to show they can manage country status before they can attain it.
The incident confirmed the State Secretary’s belief that the necessary measures in the area of corporate governance should be put in place to comply with the agreed on criteria concerning good governance.
In a letter to the Dutch Second Chamber on October 23 based on questions asked by PVV parliamentarian Hero Brinkman, Bijleveld-Schouten again outlined her position concerning the incident with the Commissioner after she had already answered questions on the topic on September 18.
She said her responsibility was to support the Netherlands Antilles with the institutional strengthening of government. In this regard, Bijleveld-Schouten said, she has made eight million euros available on a yearly basis for programmes of cooperation to enhance financial management, support integrity programmes and to strengthen supervisory bodies.
She stated in her letter that in light of the Kingdom Charter, the Kingdom had the task of safeguarding good governance and when in her point of view she believed the islands were not dealing with wrongdoings she addressed the relevant government officials of the islands and the Central Government on the matter.
Bijleveld-Schouten: “In the constitutional change process the safeguard task plays an important role. Curaçao and St. Maarten have to show that they can manage as a country, before they can attain their new status [of country].
“This means that their legislation has to comply with the agreed on criteria and that the government apparatus must be equipped to carry out the new tasks. Early during the constitutional change it became clear that the quality of integrity of some organisations would be difficult to safeguard, because of the small scale that would be created after the dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles.
“It concerns the most important organisations in the justice system and the organisation of financial supervision. For these organisations an institutionalised form of cooperation among Curaçao, St. Maarten and the Netherlands will keep on existing.”
