That members of the Second Chamber of Parliament in the Netherlands are concerned about the slow release of monies for the recovery of St. Maarten (see related story) is appreciated. The country can use all the backing it gets in applying pressure on the Dutch government to help move intended projects forward while the struggle to fully restore the island’s heavily impacted tourism economy continues.
But the delay should not surprise elected representatives in The Hague too much. After all, they backed the stringent conditions set regarding an Integrity Chamber and joint border control for getting any rebuilding assistance in the first place.
The latter led to a dispute with then-Prime Minister William Marlin, who finally did go along and submitted his cabinet’s resignation once faced with a related no-confidence vote by the Parliament in Philipsburg as well. He was nevertheless forced to leave office immediately, reducing the size of the caretaker government left behind to handle running affairs.
An interim cabinet was then installed by the new majority pending the appointment of the next government based on the February election result, which also took quite a while. All these developments did not exactly speed things up.
But the biggest factor is probably the involvement of the Wold Bank to manage to Reconstruction Trust Fund. This decision was made to ensure the money is well-spent and properly accounted for, but came along with time-consuming procedures, rules and regulations.
Still, the support of Dutch politicians in the sense of emphasising the pressing nature of the current social problems in St. Maarten is most welcome. Ultimately, normalising the badly affected lives of the population as quickly as possible should be a priority for legislators and public administrators throughout the entire kingdom, no matter which side of the Atlantic Ocean they are on.
