SINT MAARTEN (GREAT BAY) - Member of Parliament (MP) Darryl York has formally written to the President of Parliament, Sarah Wescot-Williams, requesting a status update on, and the immediate release of, the overdue 2025 Parliamentary Annual Report.
With Parliament set to convene in the coming weeks to hold Government Ministers accountable for the significantly delayed 2026 budget, MP York argues that the legislative branch cannot credibly demand timeliness and accountability from others while failing to account for itself.
The Parliamentary Annual Report is Parliament's official record of Members' attendance, participation, motions, amendments, legislative initiatives, and formal letters sent to Ministers. Despite repeated media inquiries regarding the eight-month delay, the 2025 report has yet to be published, and the Presidium has remained silent on the matter. While the continued absence of the 2024 Annual Report raises broader concerns about Parliament's reporting practices, MP York's request is specifically for a status update on, and the immediate release of, the overdue 2025 Annual Report.
"The Parliamentary Annual Report is not an administrative formality. It is Parliament's yearly report card to the people. Parliament regularly demands that Government justify its spending, explain delays, and operate transparently. Transparency is not a standard you enforce on others and suspend for yourself.
The explanation that Parliament is understaffed deserves scrutiny, not automatic acceptance. In the majority of years under previous Presidents of Parliament, Annual Reports were produced despite Parliament operating with thinner staffing levels than it has today.
This report does not evaluate Ministers. It evaluates Members of Parliament. It records who showed up, who participated, who introduced legislation, who questioned Ministers, who requested meetings, and who fulfilled their parliamentary responsibilities. When Parliament's own report card is delayed month after month, legitimate questions arise. Is the delay purely operational, or is there another reason the public has yet to receive Parliament's Annual Report?
Public confidence in Parliament depends on its willingness to hold itself to the same standards of openness and accountability that it expects from every other public institution.
President Wescot-Williams, together with Vice Presidents MP Christopher Wever and MP Ludmila de Weever, are in the best position to provide those answers. If the 2025 Annual Report has been completed, there is no justification for withholding its publication. If it has not, the public has a right to know what is truly holding it back.
Rule for one must be rule for all. Accountability begins at home."
