17 committees in Parliament, 171 “seats”, but where is the committee’s actual work?

Parliament began a new parliamentary year this week by doing what its rules require: establishing the permanent and ad hoc committees through which much of the institution’s detailed work is supposed to take place. On paper, the structure is substantial. There are 17 committees, covering everything from finance, justice and health to agriculture, electoral reform, district councils, constitutional affairs and the construction of a new Parliament building.

What is less clear is whether St. Maarten is getting enough parliamentary work out of them.

A review of the composition approved for 2026-2027 shows 171 formal committee memberships shared among just 15 Members of Parliament, an average of 11.4 committee memberships per MP. One MP is a member of every committee. Two others sit on 16 of the 17. At the other end of the table, even the MP with the fewest assignments still sits on five.

That might suggest an exceptionally busy committee system. The record of the parliamentary year that just ended suggests something different.

Who sits on the most committees?

Based on the official committee composition approved by Parliament, MP Lyndon Lewis has the largest committee workload, at least on paper. He has been assigned to all 17 committees. Viren Kotai and Francisco Lacroes follow with 16 each. Sarah Wescot-Williams is on 15, while Omar Ottley and Dimar Labega are on 14 each. The assignments span the full range of permanent and ad hoc bodies listed in Parliament’s official advice.  

From most to least, the breakdown is:

1. Lyndon C.J. Lewis, 17 committees
2. Viren V. Kotai, 16
3. Francisco A. Lacroes, 16
4. Sarah A. Wescot-Williams, 15
5. Omar E.C. Ottley, 14
6. Dimar C. Labega, 14
7. Raeyhon A. Peterson, 13
8. Sjamira D.M. Roseburg, 13
9. Veronica C. Jansen-Webster, 12
10. Christopher L. Wever, 8
11. Egbert J. Doran, 7
12. Ardwell M.R. Irion, 7
13. Ludmila N.L. de Weever, 7
14. Darryl T.J. York, 7
15. Franklin A. Meyers, 5

The official document shows some committees approaching the size of Parliament itself. The Public Health, Social Development and Labor Committee has 14 of Parliament’s 15 MPs. Justice, Education and VROMI each have 13 members. TEATT has 12.  

At the other end are five considerably smaller committees. The Committee of Kingdom Affairs and Interparliamentary Relations and the Committee for Petitions have just seven members each. The Ad Hoc Committee for the Preparation of the Construction of a New Parliament Building, the Ad Hoc Committee Integrity and the Committee for District Councils each have eight members.  

That raises its own question. If almost every MP is sitting on some specialist committees, how much specialization is actually taking place?

There is also an important nugget between being formally appointed to a committee and being allowed to participate in one. Parliament’s Rules of Order state that all MPs have the right to participate in meetings of all committees, whether they are official members of that committee or not. Only the formally appointed members have the right to vote.

So an MP who is not assigned to Finance, Justice, Education or any other committee can still attend, participate and contribute.

There just has to be a committee meeting to attend, of course.

Committees are supposed to do more than exist

Parliament describes committee meetings as investigative in nature, intended to thoroughly examine subjects and legislation before matters advance further through the parliamentary process.

The Rules of Order give that structure meaning. Permanent committees are established for the investigation of particular subjects, while ad hoc committees can be created for specific assignments. Documents, proposals, memoranda, draft national ordinances, Kingdom legislation and petitions can be referred to committees for examination.

Put simply, committees are supposed to be Parliament’s working rooms. They offer MPs an opportunity to dig deeper than may be practical in a full public meeting, bring in stakeholders, examine documents, question policy choices, develop recommendations and follow an issue over time.

That makes their level of use important.

Last year tells a different story

Parliament was certainly not inactive during the 2025-2026 parliamentary year. There were Central Committee meetings, public meetings, urgent meetings, budget deliberations and Question Hours. Major issues involving GEBE, garbage collection, the hospital, justice workers, schools, the Central Bank and the budget reached the floor.

But much of that work appears to have bypassed the specialist committees that Parliament establishes specifically to investigate sectors in greater detail.

A review of Parliament’s publicly searchable meeting notices shows several committees surfacing just once during the entire parliamentary year. The Finance Committee met in September 2025 to discuss St. Maarten’s finances with the Cft. The General Affairs Committee met in November for an update on the Country Package. The TEATT Committee met that same month to discuss public transportation plans and licence conversion.

The Petitions Committee met in January over a proposal to establish an ad hoc committee concerning GEBE. The Country’s Expenditure Committee met in March to discuss proposed Audit Chamber reports. The VROMI Committee also met in March on housing, cemetery capacity and development planning.

Agriculture held a meeting concerning the cannabis regulatory framework and continued that proceeding later. Justice had more visible activity, including meetings concerning prison research and youth crime. The Committee of Kingdom Affairs and Interparliamentary Relations was among the more active committees, meeting several times around Kingdom legislation, IPKO and interparliamentary business. Parliament’s own records, for example, show that committee meeting again in January and August 2026 on Kingdom legislation and IPKO preparations.

For several other committees, Parliament’s publicly searchable archive does not readily reveal a corresponding 2025-2026 meeting notice. The online archive is not perfectly indexed, so absence from a search cannot conclusively establish that no meeting occurred. But that qualification creates another question: if committees are doing substantive work, should the public not be able to easily see when they met, what they examined, what they concluded and what happened next?

Membership is not activity

The difference matters because simply appointing MPs to committees does not amount to parliamentary oversight.

St. Maarten has now again created a committee architecture capable of examining virtually every major policy problem facing the country. There is a Finance Committee while Government wrestles with liquidity and outstanding payments. There is a Country’s Expenditure Committee while Audit Chamber reports repeatedly identify weaknesses in public administration. There is a VSA Committee while health insurance reform, SZV financing and hospital development remain major issues.

There are committees for housing and infrastructure, education, justice, tourism and economic affairs. There is an Electoral Reform Committee at a time when electoral reform remains an unfinished political discussion. There is a District Councils Committee, an Integrity Committee and a committee dealing specifically with constitutional affairs and decolonization.  

The question, therefore, is not whether Parliament has enough committees.

It may have more than enough.

The question for the 2026-2027 parliamentary year is whether MPs will actually use them as the investigative and preparatory bodies they were designed to be.

Now watch the chairpersons

There is one more step before the committee structure is fully in place. Each permanent and ad hoc committee will select a chairperson and vice chairperson from among its own members, as required by Parliament’s Rules of Order. Parliament Chairlady Sarah Wescot-Williams also explained at Friday’s meeting that those selections will now take place within the respective committees.

Attention during this parliamentary year should not only be placed on how often each committee meets, but also on how active, or inactive, its chairperson proves to be. Holding the title of committee chair should amount to more than having another parliamentary position attached to an MP’s name.

A committee chairperson cannot single-handedly determine every aspect of a committee’s work, but leadership matters. If major issues repeatedly arise within a committee’s area of responsibility while that committee barely meets, questions should naturally be asked about whether its leadership is pushing the work forward.

A committee does not need to meet every week simply to prove it exists. Nor should the number of meetings alone become the measure of parliamentary productivity. One serious investigation that produces recommendations and forces policy action can be more valuable than ten meetings that accomplish little.

But 17 committees, 171 formal committee memberships and MPs carrying as many as 17 assignments should produce more.

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