PHILIPSBURG--Minister of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure VROMI Maurice Lake will meet with his legal team today, Monday, to review the steps to be taken to comply with the court decision and also to avoid any extra claims by the owners of Industry and Golden Rock Plantations (commonly called Emilio Wilson estate).

 

The court deadline for government's definitive answer on the purchase of the plantation is tomorrow, Tuesday.

 

Lake said in a statement issued Sunday, that his focus is on complying with the court's decision about the draft agreement while "keeping the interests of the people and country in mind."

 

Government has to also look at the other six hectares of the combined plantation that was part of the former minister's deal to be developed by the current owners.

 

Former VROMI Minister/National Alliance Member of Parliament William Marlin has thrown up "smoke screens to hide his irresponsible decision-making" that has the country "in limbo," because government does not have the money, US $17 million (some NAf. 30 million), to purchase the land. However, there is a court decision with which government needs to comply, because of the draft agreement signed by Marlin.

 

Marlin, Lake said, left "a NAf. 30-million debt of mess" that has to be cleaned up. The combined plantation "is the people's patrimony indeed. It is part of our heritage, but the former minister agreed that six hectares of the estate would be given out of the people's patrimony to a developer to build houses."

 

The minister said he is using his "Back to Basics:" approach. "If you don't follow the laws of the land, then you will end up saddling the people of this country with huge debts, and who will then bail us out?"

 

Marlin had decried the fact that the Secretary General of the Ministry of VROMI was not in Thursday's meeting about the pending purchase of the estate. Lake said the secretary general is on vacation, but Acting Secretary General Sandro Garcia was present at the parliamentary session, though not sitting with him in the General Assembly Hall.

 

Lake said Marlin should apologize to the people for "his bad decision-making, instead of throwing up a smoke screen to hide his inadequacies in his leadership and decision-making." Marlin "should have been open and transparent" with his former coalition partners in the NA-led coalition, "because they were left in the dark."

 

Government also already has two other court cases against the former minister and prior to that the milled asphalt, the sand issue, the land issue and now the plantations' purchase, as well as some other cases still pending, Lake said.

 

(The Daily Herald)