Rolando Brison
PHILIPSBURG--United St. Maarten Party (US Party) Member of Parliament (MP) Rolando Brison said on Thursday that United Democrats (UD) MP Sarah Wescot-Williams failed in her capacity as Chairperson of Parliament’s Electoral Reform Committee and is now making “disingenuous statements” about the subject “to cover her failures and shift blame.”
He urged the public not to be fooled by Wescot-Williams’ attempt to refer to electoral reform as a “mission impossible”.
“MP Wescot-Williams was the Chairlady of the Electoral Reform Committee of Parliament ever since the Committee was established by Parliament on September 14, 2018. Since that period, MP Wescot-Williams did not make a single effort to address electoral reform, as is evidenced on page 54 of the 2018-2019 Parliament annual reform that shows no new meetings. The chart shows only one meeting having been called for selection of a Chair and Vice-Chair, and no other meetings being called to address the issues surrounding electoral reform,” Brison said.
“Of course she would refer to the electoral reform request of the governor as a ‘mission impossible’ since she has sat on a chair for over a year and done absolutely nothing with the powers given to her by the Committee for Electoral Reform to effect change. And neither has her previous government.
“Why take up the chair of such an important committee and do nothing with it? And, worse yet, as soon she is ousted from the coalition, she wants to now start a discussion on electoral reform? Could she not have had this same energy over a year ago as the head of this committee?” the MP asked.
Brison said the same report also shows Wescot-Williams as Chairperson of the Committee for Integrity performing equally poorly in this capacity, having not called a meeting for that committee either. “Perhaps the major integrity breaches of the previous coalition were a reason for running from her responsibility to the Integrity Committee. To have that responsibility and do nothing with it is a travesty to the taxpayers.”
Brison said there should be no excuses for the Chairperson of the Electoral Reform Committee, who was also Chairperson of Parliament, not calling meetings, as her role as Chair allowed her to easily call meetings at her whim. As a matter of fact, he noted, he and MPs Brownbill and Mercelina had all held committee meetings in the respective functions as Committee Chairs of the Ministries of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI, Health, Labour and Social Affairs VSA, and Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunications (TEATT), respectively.
“The TEATT Committee has been one of the most active committees of Parliament. Seemingly seeing my passion and effective performance within the committee, [suspended UD – Ed.] MP [Theo] Heyliger had chosen to select me as Vice-Chairman of the Committee of TEATT with the support of the opposition at the time, despite my not being a part of his party.
“After working with MP Heyliger on this committee for some time, his suspension unfortunately led to his being removed as Chair and I embraced my role as TEATT Committee Chairman. Despite not-so-subtle efforts by the previous presidium to not honour the meetings as requested by my person as TEATT Committee Chairman, I was able to conduct some effective meetings at the time.”
He said while the inability of the previous government to manage the country’s recovery has left a mountain of very difficult tasks ahead, the US Party will not treat any of them as impossible. “We will instead continue to work hard towards electoral reform, recovery of the country, solutions for our airport and presenting our solutions for the [Financial Action Task Force] FATF financial laws that the previous coalition admitted they failed to address.”
