PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – MP Rolando Brison on Tuesday stressed that he wants to see police officers paid before Christmas 2019. The MP said the funds derived from the sale of St. Maarten’s shares in UTS which he facilitated through the related initiative law, has been reserved for the police officers. “So they should get paid sooner rather than later. The police officers have been waiting over a decade, this must happen now,” MP Bison said.
He said although the Minister of Finance confirmed that the sale of UTS has been completed and the funds reserved, “this is still not enough for me or the officers. It has to be paid out.” He said he will be relying on the incoming Minister of Finance to complete the process and ensure that the first order of business will be to provide a lump sum payment towards the back pay of the police officers.
“The coalition will also be working on how to fix the payments going forward. According to the initiative law and agreements with CFT, the funds from the UTS sale can only go towards outstanding debts. The debt to the police is clearly considered an outstanding debt so that has to be paid as soon as the new Minister goes in,” MP Brison said.
In order to help facilitate this Bison has initiated a budget amendment that would include the first payment of approximately 9 million guilders that was received from the UTS sale to be allocated to the police as an additional income. “And then going to the appropriate budget post to ensure the police officers are paid in accordance with the law.”
“I will be meeting with the unions to give them an update on the progress and process and want all justice workers to rest assured that I’m going to stay on this and make every effort to make sure they get paid soon,” MP Brison said. “The reason I put so much effort into that initiative law is to make sure St. Maarten received fair value from the sale and that our police officers who we count on the protect us are paid what is owed to them. It has been long enough and we have to do right by these men and women,” Brison said.
