PHILIPSBURG–The non-submission of the draft 2019 budget to Parliament by Finance Minister Perry Geerlings as per the constitutionally stipulated September 1 deadline and the absence of any formal notification of the reason for the delay have evoked “disappointment” in United St. Maarten Party Member of Parliament (MP) Rolando Brison.
At the very least, Brison said in a press statement on Tuesday, Parliament should have received formal notification of the delay accompanied by a plan of action to correct the situation. “But not even this was the case,” Brison said, alluding to his oath to uphold the Constitution.
“We, in Parliament, want to do our job. We would hope that the minister wishes to do his, and as co-legislators, we look forward to working with the executive branch to pass these laws. But cooperation is a two-way street.
“The budgetary process and its deadlines are very important, particularly when we are dealing with a deficit budget and one that is crucial to the resiliency of St. Maarten,” Brison said, adding that Parliament should not be treated as “a rubber stamp.”
Geerlings “needs to respect the Constitution,” because such a constitutional violation gives the impression that the minister has “little regard for the role of parliament.” Disregard for the process could prevent parliamentarians from effectively ensuring that the needs of the people are reflected in the budget, Brison said.
He expressed “frustration” with Geerlings, because the minister was once an MP who was vocal about the importance of finance ministers meeting deadlines and about holding the executive branch accountable.
Brison recalled the March 23 public meeting of Parliament in which then-outgoing-MP Geerlings urged newly elected MPs, including Brison, “to keep our Parliament and executive branch within the picket fence that we put around them. Because if you let them run off with whatever they think they need to serve to you, they will run off with it. And you will be the ones to suffer at the end of the day.”
Building on Geerlings’ quoted statement, Brison said MPs cannot allow the executive branch “to run off with things that are simply wrong, and thus I sound the constitutional alarm on this matter and hope the minister remembers his own words.”
Geerlings had indicated publicly, just weeks after taking office at the end of June, that he would seek more time to compile and submit the draft budget for review. The additional time to prepare the draft 2019 budget is to enable the delivery of “a realistic budget.”
Geerlings told civil servants in July that he would request an extension, as he has no intention of “competing to bring out a swiftly generated budget with no real reflection of the island’s financial reality.”
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/80283-brison-disappointed-draft-budget-not-with-parliament
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