Dear Editor,
Mistakes are made by people who do work. Based on “no you have, yes you can get”, appealing and protesting against decisions taken has become the thing of the day.
Those of us who learned to count, calculate, multiply, do divisions by heart, etc. know that rounding does not give the precise answer, but is accepted. There are always figures after the comma. The same goes for calculators. So I would assume that if there are calculations retroactive from 2010, that also would be rounded figures from at least 12 years. Logic would tell me that these rounded figures would also have an influence on the outcome of those calculations of 12 years.
I am not a bookkeeper, but I know that different formulas are used in certain calculations. So is it realistic that mistakes will be made or alleged to be made? Yes.
We are at the dawn of a political election, so if I did not hear or read that several of those justice workers protested because of mistakes made, I would be surprised, because that is what the norm of politics in St. Maarten is today. Instead of governing along with the coalition government in the interest of the people, members of parliament who have declared themselves opposition lay and wait, hoping that mistakes will be made, all to the detriment of the people in the country.
Because of elections, members of the coalition that sustained the government, all of a sudden, show their true colors by discrediting so much that they themselves cosigned for, simply because they are not mature enough to realize that they are publicly discrediting themselves.
For a while, decisions were taken how to go about increasing the old age pension, but people in government who think that because of old age the pensioners are stupid, they postpone the payment of the increase in old age pension until close to the election date, hoping to influence the seniors to vote for those responsible for the increase.
I am not in possession of the information, but I am of the opinion that the formula that Minister Richard Panneflek applied for the last increase in pension was not the same applied this time. I believe that Panneflek’s formula was the right formula. So, again, our politicians are putting the voters on a bus. I believe that this is a bus to nowhere.
There are more things I can state about this kind behavior, but that should not come from me, it should come from all of those people on those posters who claim that they can fix things.
I do not feel that I am out of place writing this way because since 2010 this has been the modus operandi of aspiring MPs.
The latest, what I think I can call a gimmick, is the bank book proposed by MP Bryson. My observation about that is that I believe people should have money to be able to deal with a bank. Or is there enough money to go around that MP Brison is not telling us about? Because the prices at the supermarkets are increasing daily, yes, daily, my spending power is decreasing. A whole lot of the people in St. Maarten, their bank is a slot-machine in the casino or a number booth located in the direct vicinity of almost every supermarket.
As it is now, government has obliged their employees to collect their salaries via the banks. Whether it is at the ATM machine or from the teller, obliging the people to pay for every transaction they make via the bank. Even if one would say, “My expenditures add up to 2,000 guilders this month, I'm going to take off 2,000 guilders to save on the administrative cost,” this is not possible because there is a maximum withdrawal per day, obliging one to pay for at the least two to three withdrawals.
I’ve mentioned before that I am not a bookkeeper, but if everybody go online, would not the banks be empty? And would not that mean less employees? So why are the bank employees encouraging people to go online?
Russell A. Simmons
