Dear Editor,
As your elected Member of Parliament and confidant, I take this platform to communicate various updates, government initiatives, etc. with my beloved friends and community.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our government’s decision of lockdown has made us introspect and retrospect various permutations of its execution.
This was not an easy decision to make and continues to challenge the implementation part of it.
It may seem that we are just a small island. However, the undeniable fact is, our exposure to tourism cannot be calibrated at a miniscule level. With over a million tourists visiting us, our exposure has been immense to contract more cases and fatalities. Hence, keeping this crucial thought in mind, social distancing and subsequently lockdown has proven to be beneficial to minimize the global outbreak.
Just like everything, the decision of lockdown dawned on us with economic, social and legal repercussions.
Government has diligently taken some applaudable measures to curb trickling issues like emotional stress, by facilitating Mental Health Foundation support.
It has enabled bodies to tackle abusive and violence cases.
We see our government leveraging food support to incapacitated income people.
Our front-line members, who on daily basis mask their fears without any second thoughts, muster courage and take a lead to battle this crisis relentlessly.
All the initiatives are meticulously taken by maximizing with available resources we have in existence on our island.
Despite their own alarming cases and fatalities, our biggest and consistent portal of support, our kingdom partners, have been expediting lifesaving support to us. They have sent us law enforcement team, economic relief, medical equipment, etc., for which we will continue to be grateful.
Whilst we accolade the response to many aspects, we have to be astute about the unfortunate limitations we hold in-house when it comes to financial independence. We cannot turn a blind eye to austerity of our financial inabilities.
It’s heart-breaking to see low-income, undocumented, daily wage group of people being agonized for their basic needs of existence.
Our small business owners are nervous with the thought of how long they will be able to hold their fort before drastic decisions would be a mandate for them to execute.
We as a community, citizens of St. Maarten need to accept that we may not be able to leverage enormous support externally. This, in turn, challenges us to map out our own road for recovery.
I, with lots of anticipation, reach out to all the veterans of the island, who have always been instrumental in building and protecting our island from collapsing.
Your contributions like organizing masks, gloves, medications, test kits for our front liners could be weighty.
We are reaching out to leverage support in any form that will minimize the financial burden our government is being subjected to.
We are resilient, that’s been proven time and again. All we need is a robust economic support mechanism. So, my dear fellow blessed friends, please come forward and contribute towards our elevation.
God bless us all.
Sidharth “Cookie” Bijlani
United People’s (UP) party Member of Parliament
