Brison: Wescot-Williams failed St. Maarten on electoral reform
PHILIPBURG — MP Sarah Wescot-Williams has failed St. Maarten in her capacity of Chairlady of the Electoral Reform Committee and is now making disingenuous statements about the subject of electoral reform to cover her failures and shift blame. So said USP Faction leader MP Rolando Brison who asked the public not to get fooled by Wescot-Williams attempt to refer to electoral reform as a “mission impossible”.
“MP Wescot Williams was the Chairlady of the Electoral Reform Committee of Parliament ever since the committee was established by Parliament on September 14th 2018. Since that period, the MP Wescot-Williams did not make a single effort to address electoral reform, as is evidenced on page 54 of the 2018-2019 Parliament annual reform that shows no new meetings. The chart shows only one meeting having been called for selection of a Chair and Vice Chair, and no other meetings being called to address the issues surrounding electoral reform,” MP Brison said.
He continued: “Of course she would refer to the electoral reform request of the governor a ‘Mission Impossible’ since she has sat on a chair for over a year and done absolutely nothing with the powers given to her by the committee of Electoral Reform to effect change. And neither has her previous government. Why take up the chair of such an important committee and do nothing with it? And worse yet, as soon she is ousted from the coalition, she wants to NOW start a discussion on electoral reform? Could she not have had this same energy over a year ago as the head of this committee,” the MP asked.
MP Brison said the same report also shows MP Wescot-Williams as Chairlady of the Committee of Integrity perform equally as poorly in this capacity, having not called a meeting for that committee either. “Perhaps the major integrity breaches of the previous coalition were a reason for running from her responsibility to the Integrity Committee? To have that responsibility and do nothing with it is a travesty to the tax payers.”
MP Brison has shown that committees are very much an important part of parliament as long as committee chairs take their role seriously. He said there should be no excuses for the Chairlady of the Electoral Reform Committee, who was also Chairlady of Parliament, for not calling meetings, since her role as both chairs allowed her to easily call meetings at her whim. As a matter of fact he noted, MP’s Brownbill, Mercelina and himself have all held committee meetings in the respective functions as committee chairs of VROMI, VSA and TEATT respectively.
“The TEATT Committee has been one of the most active committees of Parliament. Seemingly seeing my passion and effective performance within the committee, MP Heyliger had chosen to select me as Vice Chairman of the Committee of TEATT with the support of the opposition at the time, despite me not being a part of his party. After working with MP Heyliger on this committee for some time, his suspension unfortunately lead to him being removed as chair and I embraced my role as TEATT Committee Chairman. Despite not-so-subtle efforts by the previous presidium to not honor the meetings as requested by my person as TEATT Committee Chairman, I was able to conduct some effective meetings at the time.
“While the inability of the previous government to manage the recovery country has left a mountain of very difficult tasks ahead, USP will not treat any of them as impossible. We will instead continue to work hard towards electoral reform, recovery of the country, solutions for our airport and presenting our solutions for the FATF financial laws that the previous coalition admitted they failed to address,”MP Brison said.
