~ Brison to chair, Emmanuel Vice Chair ~
PHILIPSBURG--The members of the Mullet Bay Enquiry Commission were appointed on Wednesday by Parliament with Independent Member of Parliament (MP) Rolando Brison being appointed Chairman and National Alliance (NA) MP Christophe Emmanuel as Vice-Chairman.
The commission is a bi-partisan body that also includes United Democrat (UD) MPs Tamara Leonard and Sidharth “Cookie” Bijlani and NA MPs Anna Richardson and Solange Duncan as substitute members in the event that another MP cannot make a meeting.
Brison is the initiator of the Parliamentary Enquiry into Mullet Bay, which received unanimous support from Parliament last month. It was an historic moment for the Parliament of St. Maarten being the first time an MP submitted a proposal to initiate a Parliamentary Enquiry and the actual approval by Parliament to execute such.
Brison has maintained that a Parliamentary Enquiry is the strongest tool the legislative body has at its disposal to address the many current issues related to Mullet Bay.
The Enquiry will be executed in four phases: the preliminary information gathering phase; verification and hearing phase – the phase where the commission will be able to verify information, hear witnesses and seek advice from external entities for possible solutions; the reporting phase – the information is placed by the commission into a report and the conclusions and actions phase, where the conclusions from the report are delivered and debated by Parliament, actions agreed, and the commission continues to follow up to ensure action is taken after the report is debated by Parliament.
On Wednesday, Brison re-iterated that the Enquiry is more than just a question and answer session. It is a platform from which the commission can actually propose solutions to whatever information comes out of the Enquiry. The commission, he added, has real power and will be summoning several persons and entities to obtain the information it requires for effective functioning, reporting and solution finding.
All members of the commission said they were honoured to be part of the board in an effort to finally get some real answers about Mullet Bay, a property than spans generational involvement.
Emmanuel said he does not need a reason to support the Enquiry into Mullet Bay after almost 25 years and does not need to ask additional questions. “We deserve answers,” he said.
