PHILIPSBURG--Party for Progress (PFP) candidate and former acting head of Domain Affairs Raeyhon Peterson on Sunday responded to allegations levelled against him regarding land in Over the Bank area.
Peterson said he had taken note of his name being mentioned in the online media by a known/unknown author whom he said appears to be defending certain politicians while attempting to crucify others.
Peterson said when he joined the Department of Domain Affairs in June 2016, he inherited the Over the Bank land issuance case as his first project with the department. “Upon joining, former Department Head Darryl Stuart gave me this bit of advice: send in your request for land from now, as there is no system in place for land allocation and I would probably receive an answer in five years’ time. I, along with several other civil servants, whose names you have read over these last few weeks, submitted my request for land after this conversation with Mr. Stuart,” Peterson said in a press release.
He said after acquiring all of the requests for Over the Bank land, he advised to execute the issuance through an objective raffle, which would be handled at a notary’s office. This, he said, was to prevent that the issuance of land would be done only based on a Minister’s personal choice of recipients.
“As I mentioned earlier, in addition to myself, more than five VROMI staff members sent in a land request. At no point did I intend to receive land, as I had just started my career. Domain Affairs has a backlog dating back to the 1990s, so it would not be right to accept land before all others on the list. The issuance of Over the Bank land received several advices, most of which I wrote. I informed the Minister (Angel Meyers at the time) that the land was not ready to be given out in long lease. My reasoning for this is partially that the land at Over the Bank lacks proper infrastructure; there are no roads or utilities to make the land development-ready.”
He said this is the responsibility of government and not recipients or requesters. He said these individuals should not be victims in this saga, as they were made to be by an anonymous author.
“The decision was made to engage ICE (Independent Consulting Engineers) to install the infrastructure in the area, so the land could be ready for issuance. You see, most of the files and memos in the media, which appear to have been leaked by a very irresponsible and unethical member of the civil service, were written by me as well. This is the part that has been left out of the smear campaign against my person. I provided these memos and documents as instructed to the incoming Minister of VROMI Christophe Emmanuel, who wanted to overturn the decision made by former Minister Angel Meyers,” Peterson said.
“When MP Christophe Emmanuel took his seat as Minister in 2017, he immediately conceived other plans for the Over the Bank area. The plans with ICE to place infrastructure in the area were quickly dismissed, and it became apparent that Minister Emmanuel had personal intentions for the land. After Hurricane Irma, he approached me to take over the department’s responsibilities as the Acting Head of the department of Domain Affairs. Given the severe understaffing and micromanaging that has transpired along the years towards this department, I accepted the challenge and took on this role as of October 2017. I quickly realized that I was meant to be in that position, because of what transpired after.”
He said within two weeks of assuming the role as Acting Head of the Department (ironically, one day before that particular government fell), I was approached by then-Chief of Staff Marisha Richardson. I was expected to help with the issuance of several parcels of land to a list of persons that were previously not known to me. Mrs. Richardson herself was on this list. Sadly, it seemed to be the usual: nepotism and favouritism, without procedure or policy in place.
It is true, there is no policy in place for the issuance of government land and again, I must stress that it is not the recipients or requesters of long lease land that have to be criticized and judged, but rather, the Minister who makes the decision at their discretion.”
He said this discretion does not mean that a Minister is free to do what he or she wants. There are principles of good governance that every Minister should follow when making decisions that concern the public.
“At the moment, we continue to experience a blatant disregard for good governance and this is allowed to continue because the people have been kept in the dark by several politicians for decades. The longer this continues, the less chance the island has at receiving proper, professional and integral representation in Parliament. It hit me that I was put in this position because it was assumed that I would be willing to do someone else’s dirty work. The Minister had no intentions of giving a young professional a fair chance to build up his career, but on the contrary, had every intention to only use me for my signature.”
According to Peterson, given what PFP stands for, his priority became clear: to protect the people of Sint Maarten against the same person who placed him in the position to use him for his signature. Peterson said he informed PFP’s team and leader Melissa Gumbs of the Over the Bank saga and that he and the Acting Head of Permits Charlon Pompier were offered their own parcels of land (approximately 2,000 square meters) in the same area, an offer he said they both declined.
“We were asked if we were sure of this decision because land is and I quote, “gold.” We were sure. This was definitely not the right way to acquire government long lease land. This is why up to today, neither of us has a personal long lease parcel. There are many people who have been requesting land for years, but have not even received a general response to their request. How could we justify being civil servants for less than two years and already getting government land? It became clear to me that the system is crooked, cracked. And you cannot build a nation on a cracked foundation.”
He continued: “My issues with ministers/politicians not getting their way did not stop there. Former Minister Miklos Giterson was himself a political victim because he disagreed with certain things the then-coalition was trying to achieve. Within six weeks of his removal, I understood through the grapevine that I was next on the list because I ‘cannot be worked with.’ The fact that I had emerged as a member and candidate of the Party for Progress was a second reason I was to be removed. I informed the party of this, knowing that when the attempt was made, it would be aimed at myself and at the party for our goal of trying to serve the people of Sint Maarten in the right way.”
He said on October 11, 2019, he received a memo from Minister of VROMI Christopher Wever (former Chief of Staff to Minister Giterson), which stated that after two years of being in the role of Acting Head, he was to be demoted. “Several points must be considered with this information. After several attempts to meet with the new Minister to update him on the critical staffing situation in Domain Affairs, we received no answer. Up to the writing of this letter, I have never received a verbal warning, a warning letter or even a conversation with the current Minister regarding my performance in the department. It appeared that my demotion had nothing to do with my conduct in my position. This is made even more apparent by the fact that under my brief tenure, Domain Affairs was projected to have the highest revenue intake in its history. Political gimmicks were being carried out at the highest level,” he claimed.
“It cannot be that we sit down and remain quiet every time something like this happens. The civil service does not get the credit they deserve for having to tolerate unfair treatment and pressures that are often passed down through the executive branch. This is why I chose to take my case to court; the way we have been governed to date has to stop.”
Peterson said he is still in court contesting the decision to demote him.
