PHILIPSBURG – Prime Minister William Marlin has dismissed views raised in the public domain that his informal meeting with Members of Parliament about the approval of the 2016 budget was unbecoming of a Prime Minister.
Some in the public have suggested that Prime Minister Marlin’s infamous informal meeting last week in his car in the Pointe Blanche area was inappropriate, while some felt he was negotiating a new coalition government in order to have the 2016 budget approved in light of the arrest of independent Member of Parliament (MP) Silvio Matser. Some felt this meeting should have been held in his office as Prime Minister of the country.
However, Marlin disagreed with this notion. “If it is everybody that I speak to that I summon to my office or that I ask to come to my office, then maybe I will spend every day here until midnight,” the Prime Minister stated. “This (meeting)…was basically seeking support so that the budgetary process can continue. It was not about forming any government, it was not forming a new coalition, it was not about forming a national government…for me it is a non-issue,” he added.
Additionally, Marlin suggested that persons are misusing this opportunity. “They use others to forward their agenda to make it appear that something was going on,” he continued. He further suggested that the proposal by the UPP Party to form the government and remove independent MPs who have pulled their support of the party is hypocritical.
“When this government got in office on November 19, and immediately started working on getting the election date postponed, it was the same UPP that went on a massive campaign…that the human rights of St. Maarten people were being trampled upon, that people should have a right to vote and we should not deny them this,” Marlin said. “Now if UPP gets an opportunity to be in government, all of a sudden now it becomes right?”
PM Marlin dismisses concerns over informal meeting
