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By Hilbert Haar
Former VROMI-minister Christophe Emmanuel is next in a long line of politicians who thought that the law does not apply to them. His sentence to 29 months of imprisonment (that can still be appealed) sends a strong message to all those who have not been caught yet: if you break the law, there will be consequences.
While the guilty verdict against Emmanuel comes as a pleasant surprise for those who play by the rules, it is, sadly, not more than a blip on the radar. Many have gone before him and many will come after him. It is tempting to list them here but what is the point? Everybody knows who they are; some are in prison (and rightly so) and some have forever disappeared from the political landscape.
The question is therefore how our government wants to deal with situations like this and which mechanisms is will put in place to prevent that politicians enrich themselves at the expense of the tax payers.
This is obviously a crucial question because, don’t kid yourself, every penny a politician steals cannot be spent on the wellbeing of our people. Think about sorely needed investments in education, in road maintenance, sports facilities and in safeguarding the reliability of our power grid.
Emmanuel may still appeal his verdict but there is no guarantee that he will go home with a positive outcome. The appeals court may well increase his sentence and then he has just one escape hatch left: the Supreme Court in The Hague. That court does not look at the facts, it only looks at the way the lower courts handled the case. If they find shortcomings, this may still result in a lower sentence.
In the meantime, Emmanuel’s reputation in St. Maarten has been irrevocably damaged. The court considered that aspect in its ruling but its conclusion was simple: it is all due to his own actions.
I have been wondering how a minister is able to fiddle with established procedures (like the issuance of building permits) while the rest of the government does absolutely nothing. That is crazy.
The expression it takes two to tango does not apply here, because there are many civil servants from different departments involved in the issuance of building permits. And nobody got the idea to say: hey, this is not right, stop this.
What does this say about the mentality of the average civil servant? Do they play along as long as there is something in it for them as well? Or do they keep their heads down because they are afraid of the consequences if they speak up?
I’d think that our Minister of General Affairs, Prime Minister Luc Mercelina, has a task to improve this situation, for instance by establishing solid protection for whistleblowers. I know this is easier said than done, but doing nothing is keeping the doors wide open for swindlers who pretend – and who have sworn an oath to do so – to act in the interest of St. Maarten’s population.
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