Parliament needs to get its act together when it comes to keeping Records --- DCOMM Employee Abandons Parliament.

View Comments
Philipsburg:--- The Parliament of St. Maarten was established almost two years ago and Chairlady Gracita Arrindell is one who has to make sure that the people's business and records are in order. To date, Parliament does not have a recorder to take minutes which is required by law. Parliamentarians are supposed to be given copies of the minutes of each meeting that is held at the Parliament House but to date no one has been preparing the minutes of the meetings. While there are no minutes, the Parliament of St. Maarten has the necessary equipment in place to digitally record the meetings while it is also aired live on Cable Television and Pearl Radio.
However, the digital recording of these meetings are now in jeopardy because the civil servant working for the Department of Communication (DCOMM) that was assigned to Parliament has decided that he will no longer work for Parliament due to disagreements he had with the chairlady. SMN News learnt that while the person is a civil servant, he was hoping to get a contract to work solely for Parliament but somehow that was delayed. SMN News also learnt that the DCOMM employee did not train any other person to use the recording equipments at Parliament House.
Last week, media houses on St. Maarten were not able to obtain the digital files for the Central Committee meeting held with the Minister of Finance concerning the letter sent by the CFT, TAXAND, and the COLA payments. SMN News and other media houses managed to receive those digital files in good order two days after the meeting was held.
SMN News further understands that the Presidium of Parliament hired a web designer to do the recordings of the meetings but the person has no knowledge on how to operate the equipments and he is being assisted "trained" by the messenger boy of Parliament who also doesn't know how to fully operate the equipments to record the meetings.
On Monday when the Central Committee meeting resumed with the Minister of Finance regarding the TAXAND, COLA, and CFT letter issues, the two persons that were supposed to record the meeting did not record the first half of the meeting since they did not know how to fully operate the equipments and there was no other person trained during the 20 months the Parliament of St. Maarten is existing.
While the Minister of Finance divulged valuable information during the continuation, Parliament does not have everything on the record.
It is clear that the person at the helm of the Parliament of St. Maarten has her priorities wrong while the Griffier Joseph Semeleer needs to know that there are procedures to follow when it comes to civil servants who refuse to do their job or jeopardizes the operations of government.
It would be wise for the new coalition to ensure that the new chairperson is appointed along with a recorder who could start taking minutes for the Parliament of St. Maarten.