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Gracita slams National Alliance, DP about alleged Digicel deal
by The Daily Herald
Posted: Aug 21, 2006 15:14 UTC
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PHILIPSBURG - Member of the Island Council Gracita Arrindell of People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) took a lash at Democratic Party (DP) and National Alliance (NA) on Sunday. The reason was the alleged deal between Corporate Innovations and Smitcoms to allow Digicel to do business in St. Maarten.
She stated in a press release Sunday that the most recent disclosures in the media showed that the Island Territory of St. Maarten “desperately needs laws against conflicts of interest, self-dealing, stealing.”
She called the “alleged players in yet another transaction involving close friends, family members and significant others” of the Democratic Party Executive Council, as well as allegedly members of the National Alliance, “outrageous and alarming.”
Arrindell wanted to know why National Alliance (NA) Members of Parliament William Marlin and Frans Richardson, and their DP colleague Maria Buncamper-Molanus hadn’t posed questions on this matter when Minister of Telecommunications Kenneth Gijsbertha was on the floor of Parliament last week.
She accused many elected officials of getting into government with the primary goal of getting rich, rather serving the people. “Some of our elected officials still think it’s okay to play the handout game of gifts from their foundations, giving ice cream to our elderly, pencils to our children or even US $50 payments to voters,” she said.
“The history of the DP is well documented and (shows) that the select few, their family and friends, political cronies and contractors and licensees have benefited, while the people are left with debts, clogged streets, bad air, lack of affordable housing and medical care, rising poverty and crime, and a declining educational infrastructure,” she said.
Arrindell said that even the opposition in the past years, including NA’s predecessor St. Maarten Patriotic Alliance (SPA), hadn’t properly served the people’s interests. She asked what SPA or NA had done over the years to outlaw conflicts of interests, self-dealing, contracts and deals to family members, significant others and friends for less than the real value.
Arrindell said she was disappointed in NA’s Members of Parliament Marlin and Richardson and urged them to tell the people why they hadn’t raised the Digicel matter in Parliament.
She said the people were demanding a new direction, wanting their elected officials to serve the people’s interests first and foremost. “The days of serving in government to get rich or selling government assets to members of your family and your friends are over,” she said, announcing that PPA intended to submit additional laws to stop these practices.
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