It appears the Office of the Ombudsman saved about 100,000 Netherlands Antilles guilders last year. According to the 2018 annual report Ombudsman Gwendolien Mossel presented to Prime Minister Leona Romeo Marlin (see related story), based on the unaudited financial report only NAf. 1,430,400 of the budgeted NAf 1,535,294 was spent.
Is that amount worth it, some might ask, as many may not be too familiar with the bureau’s role. It is the guardian of the Constitution and has successfully defended it from infringements several times, in the Constitutional Court that St. Maarten established as the only country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands to protect its citizens’ rights. So yes, the extra safeguard ensuring respect for the rule of law is evidently not an unnecessary luxury.
However, while holding officials, ministers, parliamentarians and other public sector entities accountable to principles of proper governance such as transparency, the Constitution and ultimately the Kingdom Charter, it also helps if people at least know how things are supposed to work, which is often a problem at all levels of society. Instead of deducting last year’s surplus from the 2019 budget, perhaps the money can still be used to address the latter issue.
Students in secondary education used to get more so-called Civics, known in the Dutch system as “Staatssinrichting” and taught as a spinoff from History. That was later changed to “Maatschappijleer” (social science) but the content seemingly became of an increasingly general nature.
It would be good if youngsters would again learn specifically about their homeland’s colonial and political history, parliamentary democracy, system of government, etc.
Teachers could be hired to offer such classes at local schools with available lesson materials on a weekly or even monthly basis. After all, we expect voters to elect the right politicians into office, but don’t really give them enough tools to make well-informed choices.
