Students and parents whose children will be traveling to the Netherlands for the first time to further their studies contacted SMN News because word had gotten to them that Calvin Mardembrough, a long time veteran in handling student affairs, will not be accompanying the children this Sunday with the Minister and her adviser.
According to well placed sources within the Minister's cabinet, the Minister of Education Silveria Jacobs was given an ultimatum by her adviser Antonio Aventurin on Wednesday. The source said Aventurin told the Minister it's either him staying on the job or Mardembrough.
SMN News learnt that both the Minister and Aventurin were angry at Mardembrough and even blamed him for leaking information to a reporter regarding the students that are scheduled to travel to the Netherlands. The source said that the Minister and her adviser called Mardembrough to an emergency meeting on Wednesday demanding to know how the media knew of the chaos that was taking place within the Ministry, especially regarding the tickets that KLM refused to issue before being paid.
SMN News learnt from the travel agency that when Mr. Mardembrough worked at the Study Financing Department preparations would have been completed in an early stage allowing them to send through a tentative list of names to KLM sooner.
The source said that the Minister even went as far as instructing the Personnel Department to halt the processing of Mardembrough's paper work to make him the head of Study Financing Department in its present structure. "If this is not political victimization, then what is? They will attempt to blame Mardembrough for the failures of Antonio Aventurin who left much work undone in his eagerness to climb the ladder and become the political adviser of the Minister of Education." Parents and students informed an SMN News reporter on numerous occasions regarding his arrogance and incompetence in dealing with them.
The source said Aventurin and the Minister were even more angry with Mardembrough because he allowed the staff to go ahead and meet with the students Tuesday evening and provide them with information on their trip while the Minister of Education and her adviser sat in their office because they wanted to cancel the meeting on short notice until the tickets for the students were issued by KLM.
SMN News also learnt that at no time were the students' tickets really in jeopardy as Mr. Mardembrough continued to work tirelessly with KLM to resolve the issue before the planned meeting.
The administrative process and bureaucracy took longer than expected and the students were able to receive their tickets by email.
It should be noted that Antonio Aventurin only went once to the Netherlands with students and that was last year when Mardembrough was the adviser to the former Minister of Education.
Another well placed source said, "this arrogance and vindictiveness of Mr. Aventurin and Minister Jacobs is now putting the new untrained staff of the Study Financing Department in a difficult situation when dealing with Mr. Mardembrough in whatever position he holds."
According to information provided to SMN News by a source at KLM Curacao, the airline refused to grant the students their tickets unless they are paid and furthermore because the names of the passengers were only provided to them last Friday through their agent Let's Travel. The KLM source said that the government of St. Maarten owed their travel agent too much monies and it was because government was making their bookings late. "Sometimes government asks for tickets one day for politicians to travel the next day and they never consider the price increases associated with these late bookings. The KLM manager in Curacao decided to issue the tickets to the students when she managed to get assurance from Mardembrough because she has been dealing with Mardembrough for years and she knew of his competence when it comes to St. Maarten's students. SMN News also learnt that another top civil servant who is now the executive adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister had to intervene and demand that the Minister of Education sign off on the advice for the tickets on Tuesday so that the airline could be paid on Wednesday.