Dear Editor,
Who is Stoker? We are a collective of people on St. Maarten and in the diaspora researching historic facts and backgrounds of some of today’s political problems. We realize our revelations may stir up some response and knowing the politicized society, we live in, we must withhold our actual names and will use the pen-name “Stoker”.
It takes a lot of time talking to people, digging through old documents, and searching on-line libraries to reconstruct the actual history behind some present-day problems like this one. However, we feel that what we have uncovered needs to get out. Then you decide what is true!
In part 1 we followed the history of this problem from its origins to the day of the elections on January 9, 2020. This, however, is not the end of the story.
Insiders have revealed that the Silveria Jacobs Cabinet 1 was warned that paying that advance to police officers on election day could seriously backfire. The legislation to alter the salary scales going into effect in the past wasn’t even drafted yet. It was also expected to raise many questions from the Council of Advice. Paying an advance on a law that doesn’t exist is illegal! So, drafting and getting that piece of legislation on the books post-haste was essential to brush off the “illegal” from the act, after the fact. Those many questions from the Council of Advice did indeed come. Up to this day, this piece of legislation has not passed.
We used the word “alter” the salary scales because we find the word “fixing” not fitting anymore, now we know the history of it. The unions after 10-10-10 had gotten exactly what they wanted for their members, so there is nothing broken that needed to be fixed. Mind you, at this point the issue was just about the replacing of the old salary scales of the police department only with new ones retroactively. Then fit the police officers in those new scales and pay them the difference with the salary they already had gotten since 10-10-10. This would boil down to getting one salary increment extra for most. No function book, or new legal position for the Police Department are required for that!
According to our sources the estimated cost that time was about NAf. 4 million. Of which half was already paid on election day with no taxes levied. This is already an enormous complex administrative process. Imagine going 13 years back in time. There are police officers who have left the force since that time, gone on pension, or have died.
Having cashed in his electoral votes, then-Minister of Justice Doran ran from the Justice Ministry to start wreaking havoc in the Ministry of VROMI [Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure – Ed.]. That, however, is another story.
Instead of fixing this one issue with the police salary scales, the new Minister of Justice, Anna Richardson, decided to make it a lot more complicated and a whole lot more expensive. She added new issues to the already problematic mix. She convinced herself and the Council of Ministers, that the function book for the whole Ministry of Justice, and the entire legal position of the police should be mixed into the issue of the police salary scales. Naturally, she feels now they all must go into effect dating back to 10-10-10. However, there is absolutely no need to go back in time for other changes to the legal position of the Police Department either. The same goes for the Function Book of the entire Ministry of Justice.
Putting an upcoming payout before all the entire Ministry of Justice workers is a very expensive, purely political choice. As we learned from Minister Anna Richardson on Friday, July 14, 2023, it will cost the community more than 40 million guilders in back-pay. We wonder how many votes this buys. In the recent past we have seen politicians being convicted for buying votes, using their own money. These politicians do not use their own money, they use ours!
Stoker
Pseudonym used at author’s request.
