PHILIPSBURG--St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform will be meeting with the Ombudsman on January 18 to lodge a complaint against government’s silence regarding two requests from the platform for a meeting.
Platform representative Raymond Jessurun told reporters at a press conference on Thursday that the platform has still not received an official response to its two requests for a meeting with government. He said the platform had sent government two written requests for a meeting and it expects written a response and not “hearsay” or statements made in a Council of Ministers press briefing. The platform’s requests were sent in August and November last year.
When asked about the matter recently, Minister Wycliffe Smith, in his capacity as Deputy Prime Minister, acknowledged that a request had been received from the Anti-Poverty Platform. Smith said the matter had been discussed in the Council of Ministers and the council had decided that certain questions would be presented to the platform in anticipation of the meeting that will be arranged with the council.
Jessurun had said last week that although the platform looks forward to hearing from government, it is “ridiculous” that the platform had to wait until a Council of Ministers press briefing to be informed that government has questions for it. At the time, he expressed hope that this was not another delaying tactic by government to avoid having dialogue with the platform and to avoid tackling the pressing issues the platform wants to address with government.
