PHILIPSBURG–Parliament’s Permanent Committee for Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transportation and Telecommunication (TEATT) is poised to call a number of stakeholders involved in the economic recovery of the country post-Hurricane Irma to outline their approaches and plans.
One organisation to be invited by the committee is American University of the Caribbean (AUC) Medical School. AUC representatives recently made their rounds in Parliament, meeting with Parliament Chairwoman Sarah Wescot-Williams and Deputy Chairman Theo Heyliger as well as having a separate meeting with opposition leader Member of Parliament Silveria Jacobs.
Jacobs already made public that she intends to invite the medical school representatives to meet with Parliament’s Permanent Committee for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports following the summer recess.
Wescot-Williams, a member of the TEATT committee headed by MP Rolando Brison, reminded fellow MPs on Thursday in the committee’s first sitting of the current Parliament that the purpose of committees is to do preliminary investigations for eventual Central Committee and plenary sittings of Parliament.
Committees cannot do much with direct requests from groups/entities, she added, as these require action in a plenary session. When requests are made and not acted on, this often leads to frustration by those making requests.
Both MPs Fran Richardson and Ardwell Irion rebutted that it was essential to call entities in to gain insight and knowledge to prepare for Central Committee and plenary sittings. For instance, they want to hear from the St. Maarten Tourism Authority (STA), St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA), and the Indian Merchants Association (IMA), amongst others.
MP Jurendy Doran also wanted the committee to gather better insight into the country’s economic recovery to plot the way forward.
Irion called for government to inform the committee on the list of projects derived from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) together with link to executing ministries and the price tag of each.
At least one Central Committee or plenary session of Parliament that will focus on the use of social media is expected as a result of the committee meeting. Wescot-Williams said she would convene the meeting in her capacity of Parliament head as well as the person who broached the topic.
The issue of social media came to the fore after Wescot-Williams said she had received questions via the Internet of an alternative Facebook.com live stream of the committee meeting. Querying this, Brison said he had a live feed to let the people in his circle know Parliament was live-streaming.
The way to process in the future will be dealt with in the planned meeting, with Parliament’s Rules of Order taking a centre stage. Brison said many of the rules are “antiquated” and need to be reviewed in terms of today’s realities.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/78119-teatt-committee-to-call-stakeholders
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