PHILIPSBURG — Roger Lawrence has stepped down as Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication, citing health reasons. The Council of Ministers received Lawrence’s resignation during its meeting on Tuesday, July 26. On Friday, July 29, the resignation was finalized by national decree. Lawrence had already been out of commission for some time and during his absence his tasks were taken over by Public Health Minister Omar Ottley. He will continue to do so until a replacement for Lawrence has been sworn in. “After much thought and prayer I have decided to make my position as minister of TEATT…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — Member of Parliament Raeyhon Peterson (Party for Progress, PFP) made mince meat of the accusations Minister Egbert Jurendy Doran (of Public Housing, Urban Planning, Environment and Infrastructure, VROMI) made against him a week ago during an interview with Lady Grace in the radio broadcast The Breakfast Lounge. Minister Doran suggested that Peterson, in his function as acting head of Domain Affairs had been “instrumental” in giving a positive advice about Alegria’s request for the right of long lease to a water parcel near its Morgan Resort. Peterson said that, when he was removed from his position at Domain…
PHILIPSBURG — The Pro Soualiga Foundation recommends in a letter dated July 27 to the island Council of Statia and to the kingdom representative to withdraw a report written by mediators Suzy Camelia-Römer and Maria Liberia-Peters with the assistance of former Ombudsman Alba Martijn. The report evaluates the situation in Statia, after the Netherlands appointed a kingdom representative to govern the island and to sideline the Executive Council, the Island Council and the Lt. Governor in 2018. The mediators recommend restoring democracy in Statia after the elections in 2023. If that is not possible, they prefer higher supervision (that would…
PHILIPSBURG / NEW YORK — It’s over. Eliane Berwers has completed her three-week summer intensive program at the Dance Theater of Harlem. And what a three weeks it has been. Eliane proved herself as a committed dancer. So much so that one of her instructors told her mother, Christ’l Larmonie: “She is very disciplined and talented and she did very well.” Her dorm chaperone, a former dancer, added: “Eliane is very talented and she will make it if she continues like this.” Eliane ended the three-week experience with an hour of what the Dance Theater calls the culminating event, a…
PHILIPSBURG — Millions of people must have crossed the Prince Bernhard Bridge across the Fresh Pond in the course of the past ninety-odd years. The bridge is a part of St. Maarten’s patrimony, but information reaching us from within the Ministry of VROMI indicates that there are plans to remove the iconic structure and to replace it with a roundabout. That cannot be right. Recently, Lady Grace interviewed VROMI-Minister Egbert Doran on her radio program The Breakfast Lounge. While most of the attention went to Doran’s attack on Member of Parliament Raeyhon Peterson, he also made some remarks about the…
PHILIPSBURG — The dispute between minister of Public Housing, Urban Planning, Environment and Infrastructure (VROMI) Egbert Doran and Member of Parliament Raeyhon Peterson (Party for Progress) is turning into an ugly dog fight. Doran demands that Peterson clarifies his role in Alegria’s request for long lease rights and Peterson threatens Doran with a defamation lawsuit. Minister Doran wrote a letter dated July 20 to Peterson that was delivered to the MP by a bailiff a day later. Doran notes that Peterson was the acting head of domain affairs before he became a parliamentarian. He refers to a letter Alegria’s ultimate…
PHILIPSBURG — Smoke and mirrors. That expression comes to mind after hearing VROMI-Minister Egbert Doran’s say in an interview on 102.7 FM radio with Lady Grace that the motion of no confidence the Party for Progress intends to table against him has nothing to do with the highly critical Ombudsman report about the tender for solid waste-collection. Instead, Doran said, it has to do with the role PFP-MP Raeyhon Peterson played in the granting of rights of long lease to Alegria. The facts tell however a different story. “This motion is not about the Ombudsman report,” Doran said. This is…
PHILIPSBURG / THE HAGUE — St. Maarten has started to pay out vacation allowances without a positive advice from financial supervisor Cft and without permission from the Kingdom Council of Ministers (KCoM), State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen (Kingdom Relations) writes in a letter to the Dutch Second Chamber. This way, St. Maarten does not live up to conditions set by the KCoM. In its meeting of February 4, the KCoM agreed that the Caribbean countries (St. Maarten, Aruba and Curacao) are allowed to create alternatives for the 12.5 percent salary cut for civil servants. The condition is that these solutions…
PHILIPSBURG — How effective is the fight against undermining and organized international crime? That is a legitimate question, not only in St. Maarten but also in the Netherlands, it appears from an article on the news site of broadcaster NOS. In the Netherlands the fight is expensive, but it St. Maarten it is a lot cheaper. St. Maarten has the Detective Cooperation Team (RST) and the TBO (Team Bestrijding Ondermijning) that ceased to exist at the end of 2021. Its successor is called Sustainable Undermining Approach Caribbean (Duurzame Ondermijningsbestrijding Cariben), with DOC as its Dutch acronym. Starting in 2025, the…
PHILIPSBURG — The Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten (CBCS) and the ENNIA companies say that there are “indications of bribery” of former Minister of Finance Richard Gibson Sr. But Gibson states in a reaction that “it takes a very devious and warped mind to link the golden parachute payment I received in 2014 to my appointment as Minister of Finance in 2015.” The Antilliaans Dagblad reports that Gibson stepped down in 2014 as a member of the supervisory board of ENNIA Caribe Holding and that he received a golden parachute payment of 2 million guilders (around $1.1 million).…
