~ Had threatened to complain to the Dutch Govt ~
PHILIPSBURG--Dismissed Head of Finance Bastiaan "Bas" Roorda was fired for insubordination and was at "no point told or pressured not to file a complaint" with the Prosecutor's Office related to the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau case, Justice Minister Roland Duncan told The Daily Herald on Sunday.
Duncan also disclosed that former Tourism Commissioner/Member of Parliament (MP) Frans Richardson of the National Alliance (NA) was among seven people named in the embezzlement complaint Roorda had filed.
Duncan said Roorda, who left the island on Friday, had been questioned intensely by the Council of Ministers on March 31 about his proof of embezzlement and why, in particular, civil servants ? including Tourist Bureau Head Regina Labega ? had not been questioned about his finding, a requirement of the law governing civil servants. "He did not contact any one of the people."
Duncan, in his capacity as Acting Prime Minister, chaired the Council of Ministers meeting on March 31 when Roorda was called in and told that as per his contract, he was being given one month's notice that his services were being terminated.
Duncan said the termination of the contract had nothing to do with Roorda wanting to file a complaint, as that was a right guaranteed to everyone in a democratic society. Any claim must be backed up by proof and it was that proof that was not forthcoming, Duncan said.
"He claimed embezzlement. We asked, 'How much?' He could not tell us. Regina Labega was suspended last year on Roorda's recommendation and the court didn't find grounds, so what happens? Government looks bad," Duncan said.
The termination had to do with "insubordination," because he declined to give information about what he was working on to his boss Finance Minister Hiro Shigemoto. (Duncan is Shigemoto's father-in-law.)
"He told his boss, the minister, to work through the chain of command and go to the Secretary-General [for Finance] to get whatever he needed, and threatened to report to the Dutch Government. What's he reporting to the Dutch Government? His employer is the St. Maarten Government," Duncan said.
As for Roorda's claim ? printed in the Today newspaper on Saturday ? that Duncan had made it clear that if he didn't back down with the complaint the March 31 meeting with the Council of Ministers would be his last, Duncan said he didn't know whether what had been published had been quoted correctly, but no such thing had been done.
He said Roorda's statement was "absolutely inaccurate," because the chairman had given Roorda "the last word" in the meeting after everyone else had had their say, for him to add anything else he might have wanted to say. "I spoke mostly in Dutch so he [Roorda] was sure to understand, and my Dutch can't be that bad," Duncan said.
He labelled Roorda "a notorious liar" who is "incompetent and on an ego trip" because he claimed that if he didn't want to sign off on government payment he didn't. "Is it even possible that one civil servant could cause government to come to a halt?"
Roorda stated in the meeting, according to Duncan, that "government could not balance its budget, but there were people stealing." This statement is "erroneous," the minister said, adding that this also had been pointed out to Roorda.
Duncan said government had an issue with the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT regarding the budget and as for people stealing, "what did they steal? How much? We didn't get any answers."
It is "a fact" that Roorda and other people living in St. Maarten give information to the Dutch Government and the CFT "to discredit" the country and make it look bad, Duncan said, decrying this practice, which he said served only to undermine a country in development.
As for Roorda's claim that he had left St. Maarten because he feared for his safety, Duncan said Roorda needed to say who had threatened him and how, and to explain how he could be compared with Tourism and Economic Affairs Secretary-General Miguel de Weever whose car had been burned, allegedly in relation to the Tourist Bureau case last year.
When contacted by this newspaper Sunday about the complaint filed by Roorda more than a week ago and about whether Roorda had mentioned that he had been threatened in any way for reporting the case, Prosecutor Hans Mos said the "fact-finding investigation" was still ongoing and Roorda had not said he was being threatened.
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