Member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament André Bosman of the liberal democratic VVD party and his colleague Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) made clear on Wednesday that they will not ease off criticising the US $10,000 salary of Members of St. Maarten's Parliament, which, according to them, is way too high.

 

Bosman said on Wednesday that he will not stay out of the business of the overseas countries of the Kingdom as long as the Charter says that the Kingdom has to guarantee good governance on the islands. "The Kingdom has one mailing address and that is The Hague. All mail, all problems come here. If St. Maarten goes bankrupt, they will not go to Aruba or Curaçao for help. They will knock on our door."

 

Van Raak: "If the St. Maarten politicians want to fill their pockets, they should do it outside the Kingdom. It is fine if you want to be a country without good governance and with groping politicians, but we will not allow that in our Kingdom."

 

Bosman added: "If they want me to stop bugging them, we have to take the guarantee function out of the Charter, but that will have one great consequence and that is independence."

 

According to Van Raak and Bosman, St. Maarten Parliamentarians should set the right example and reduce their salary. "They are earning too much while the country is under financial supervision, cost-cutting measures are being taken that affect the people and St. Maarten is having trouble balancing its budget," said Bosman.

 

He added that in The Netherlands, politicians are also reducing their salary, their pension is being cut and the pensionable age has increased to 67. "We expect everyone in The Netherlands to chip in to cut expenses and we politicians are no exception," he said.

 

"St. Maarten doesn't realise that things have changed in The Netherlands. The Dutch Parliament and the Dutch people hoped that things would go better after St. Maarten became a country on October 10, 2010. But it didn't. The bad practices continued. The Second Chamber and the people have had it," said Van Raak.

 

Van Raak has spoken with President of St. Maarten's Parliament Rodolphe Samuel about the salary issue. Samuel is in The Netherlands together with a delegation from St. Maarten for the Inter-Parliamentary Consultation of the Kingdom. Bosman didn't have a talk yet with his St. Maarten colleagues on this matter, but he said that he would gladly do so.

 

Member of St. Maarten's Parliament Frans Richardson said on Tuesday that their salaries were of no concern to the Second Chamber. "Their response is humiliating. They are not taking our criticism seriously," said Van Raak.

 

The St. Maarten Parliamentarians have contended that they have to pay for legal advice and lawyers to draft legislation out of their own pockets, because Parliament has no legal staff or legislation bureau to support them.

 

Bosman said The Netherlands would gladly assist with legal expertise for St. Maarten's Parliament if that would eliminate the need for the high salaries. He said the objectivity of a law initiative would be lost if a Member of Parliament had to pay a lawyer out of his own pocket for it. "Politicians have a political wish, the lawyer checks whether this is legally feasible and it is very important that this process is completely objective."

 

(The Daily Herald)