Ministers discuss a point on Monday.
PHILIPSBURG–Members of Parliament (MPs) dealt with the country’s readiness for the current hurricane season in Monday’s Central Committee meeting, a continuation of a meeting called in April.
Prime Minister and Minister of General Affairs Leona Romeo-Marlin, Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labour VSA Emil Lee, Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Miklos Giterson and Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever answered questions from the MPs who wanted to know how prepared the country is.
MP Rolando Brison was critical about the timing of the meeting. “It took government four months to get to parliament. Back in April this meeting was called prior to the hurricane season. While we are in the hurricane season, the meeting takes place,” Brison said.
Chairperson of Parliament Sarah Wescot-Williams told him that the ministers had prior engagements and the scheduling of the meeting was not on parliament’s side.
Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin listened keenly to MPs who asked about shelters, the reconstruction fund, chain of command during a hurricane disaster, and reports detailing post-Hurricane Irma actions.
MPs also brought up the recently-concluded report from the Ombudsman office. The Ombudsman recently concluded a Systemic Investigation, initiated after the hurricanes of September 2017, regarding: the state of preparedness of the government of St. Maarten pursuant to the National Ordinance Disaster Risk Reduction and the Disaster Management Plan for the hurricane season 2018, and lessons learned.
After providing a preliminary findings report, the final report was submitted on August 7 to the Prime Minister, who is in charge of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
The Ombudsman concluded in her report that: “Notwithstanding the enormous activities engaged by government in the aftermath of the hurricanes, the structural absence of vital documents, among which sub- and action plans to be provided by the various Emergency Support Function (ESF) groups, as well as external conditions such as the procedural rules to access the aid made available by the Netherlands through the Trust Fund, seriously impede the state of readiness of the country in the midst of the hurricane season 2018.”
The Ombudsman said Government is not sufficiently prepared for the effective prevention of major consequences a hurricane may have on the public of St. Maarten, or to deal with same in the aftermath of a possible disaster.
The meeting was requested by National Alliance (NA) leader MP Silveria Jacobs, MP Ardwell Irion and MP Egbert Doran. Monday’s meeting also was the first Central Committee meeting for MPs Tamara Leonard (United Democrats) and Claude Peterson (St. Maarten Christian Party) who were sworn last month.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/79546-mps-discuss-country-s-disaster-preparedness
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