PHILIPSBURG — The General Audit Chamber’s focus audit of the execution of the stimulus and relief program (SSRP) in 2020 raises questions about the program’s effectiveness, its authors write. The report’s cover shows a one hundred dollar bill, featuring the image of Benjamin Franklin, in the form of a puzzle. The ministry of finance “did not provide significant financial monthly reports” for the audit and the ministry of public health, social development and labor (VSA) “did not provide any information at all.” The report states that “an obligation to do so is a statutory requirement for an audit.” On December…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — “A complete revamping for the economy boosting strategy is necessary, because it has not worked for the St. Maarten minimum wage earner.” That is the conclusion of Certified Risk Analyst Terence Jandroep after a study on the “small man economic platform in the Caribbean.” The study includes a comparison of minimum wages in the Dutch Caribbean and the findings are no surprise: St. Maarten is at the bottom of the food chain with an hourly rate that trails the payout in the BES-islands, Curacao and Aruba. Jandroep notes that minimum wage earners in St. Maarten take home 21…
PHILIPSBURG — The draft 2022 budget closes with a deficit of 124.1 million guilders ($69.3). No surprises there. Revenue is projected to be 409.3 million ($228.7 million) and expenditures 533.5 million ($298 million). More interesting than these numbers is the question: what is the government going to achieve under such dire financial stress? The answers ought to be in the policy plan for 2022 that is an integral part of the budget. Finance Minister Ardwell Irion writes in his elucidation that, given the deficit, it is important to increase revenue and to lower expenditures. The measures contained in the country…
PHILIPSBURG — St. Maarten will increase the retirement age to 66 in 2025, “unless independent research shows that this is not necessary and there are alternative proposals with the same budgetary effect.” This appears from the execution agenda of St. Maarten’s country package for the fourth quarter of this year. On December 22, 2020, Prime Minister Jacobs and State Secretary Raymond Knops (Kingdom Relations) signed the mutual agreement for the execution of the country package that is linked to the yet to be established COHO (Caribbean Development and Reform Organization). The package contains 48 measures and 46 associated sub-activities that…
PHILIPSBURG – The Stichting Justitiële Inrichtingen St. Maarten (SJIS) and the St. Maarten Prosecutor’s Office (OM SXM) recently updated to Justice Minister of Justice Anna E. Richardson about the ongoing Domestic Violence and Mediation Restorative Justice Project. This project is in its pilot phase and runs from July 1 to December 21, 2021. The project team, together with stakeholders from the Police Force of Sint Maarten KPSM and Safe Haven, shared with Minister Richardson, the milestones achieved thus far, such as mediation training for several partners working on combating domestic (relational) violence, the Safe Home behavioral intervention training for workers directly…
~ Faction proposes to extend debates into Parliament recess ~ PHILIPSBURG – With only one week left before Parliament goes on recess, Party for Progress (PFP) Members of Parliament (MPs) Melissa Gumbs and Raeyhon Peterson are spearheading a proposal for MPs to continue working well into the holiday season. The late submission of the country’s 2022 budget is the reason for the proposal. Although Article 100 sub-point 3 of Sint Maarten’s Constitution stipulates that the national budget should be submitted to Parliament by September 1 of the preceding year, MPs only received the 2022 budget on Wednesday, December 8, 2021…
By Hilbert Haar A political crisis? I don’t think so. Of course, it is unique that the only two members of the United St. Maarten party (USp) – Claudius Buncamper and Akeem Arrindell – have declared themselves independent, and that as a result of those actions the USp is no longer represented in parliament. That the party under its new leader Pamela Gordon-Carty is unhappy with this turn of events is understandable. Buncamper and Arrindell have done nothing else than practicing the time-honored tradition of ship jumping. Why they did this is unclear, vague or incomprehensible. Most likely there are…
PHILIPSBURG — A rather astonishing 66 pages of internal documents of utilities company GEBE – letter, emails and other documents – have been leaked to the media through SX Leaks from a Gmail address with the same name. While the company may want to focus its efforts on the person or persons who leaked the documents, the real concern should be about the content of these documents. They paint once more a rather ugly picture of the work history of the government’s number one candidate for the position of Chief Executive Officer – Sharine Daniel. A letter from the recently…
PHILIPSBURG — The board of the United St. Maarten Party Party (USP) will seek further clarification into what it deems as a serious constitutional issue after both of its MP’s, Claudius Buncamper and Akeem Arrindell, declared themselves as independent members of Parliament, leaving the party with no representation in Parliament. The board recently met with Dr. Julio Romney, Scholar of Comparative Government & Politics who has also publicly considered the latest developments as a constitutional crisis. The discussions between the US board and Romney centered on the analysis of proportional representation as detailed in the constitution and the electoral law.…
by Cdr. Bud Slabbaert For fifteen years now, he and his wife are coming to St Maarten; and that twice a year. Why didn’t we meet them before? I found out that they have so much give: Wilmer Woodland and his wife Carol Stone. Everyone knows him as Woody. “I don’t like that Mister Woodland stuff. I’m simply Woody and if they learn to know who I am and what I stand for, then, let them consider if they want to give me title of “Mister”. I can do without it.” Once you get to know him, you will like…
