By Hilbert Haar The World Bank has finally sounded the alarm over the progress and viability of the airport reconstruction project. At the center of its concerns are attempts by the airport-holding’s board to fire director Brian Mingo and to send the complete board of the exploitation company packing. The World Bank must have seen this coming. The project document published by the Trust Fund on the website sintmaartenrecovery.org neatly details the risks associated with the $129 million reconstruction project. “The government scheme over the airport operation is highly complex,” this document states. “Decision making could be highly political.” The…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — De houdstermaatschappij zet de financiering voor de reconstructie van de luchthaventerminal op het spel als het haar pogingen doorzet om directeur Brian Mingo te ontslaan en om de Raad van Commissarissen van de exploitatiemaatschappij (PJIAE) naar huis te sturen. Dit blijkt uit een brief van de Wereldbank aan minister president Silveria Jacobs. De Wereldbank deelt haar “diepe bezorgdheid” over recente ontwikkelingen “die een potentiele bedreiging vormen voor de reconstructie van de aankomst- en vertrekhal,” zo stelt Tahseen Sayed, directeur van de Wereldbank voor Latijns-Amerika en de Caribische Regio. Sayed kondigt aan dat een “grote aanbesteding” is uitgeschreven voor…
PHILIPSBURG — The airport holding is putting financing for the terminal reconstruction project at risk if it continues with efforts to dismiss Chief Executive Officer Brian Mingo and to send the board of the exploitation company (PJAE) home. This appears from a letter the World Bank sent to Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs. The World Bank shares its “deep concern” about recent developments “that can potentially pose a threat to the implementation of the airport terminal reconstruction project,” Tahseen Sayed, the World Bank’s director for Latin America and the Caribbean Region writes in the letter, dated February 3. Sayed announces that…
PHILIPSBURG — Independent Member of Parliament Christophe Emmanuel on Friday questioned Minister of TEATT Ludmila DeWeever about the financial status of the Bureau of Telecommunication & Post, in particular government’s role over the years with the much talked about BTP building in Philipsburg and “who owes who” in the process. Emmanuel also questioned if a person with a legal conviction on his record still sits on the board of BTP. The MP used his time to speak in the Central Committee meeting to ask the minister how did BTP enhance its revenue generating capacity since its inception after 2010, from…
~ Amateur hour with Bibi Shaw ~ By Hilbert Haar Freedom of the press and freedom of the right of expression are valuable to me. They are the cornerstones of professional journalism, but these rights are not absolute. Theoretically, the law protects individual citizens and companies against slander. If you are consistently and knowingly violate these principles you are giving my profession a bad name. That upsets me. Long before he became president of the United States, a nightmare that is thankfully behind us now, Trumpism was already alive and kicking in St. Maarten. For years, the publication of half-truths,…
PHILIPSBURG — Member of Parliament Claudius Buncamper will have to go back to court for a replay of his appeal against his conviction for tax fraud. That is the conclusion of the Supreme Court’s Attorney-General D.J.M.W, Parideans who handled Buncamper’s cassation. According to Parideans, the Common Court of Justice “insufficiently motivated” in its verdict of October 15, 2018, why it found Buncamper guilty of “factually leading” the submission of incomplete and incorrect profit tax returns over the years 1009, 2010 and 2011. The Supreme Court routinely follows the conclusion of its attorney-general. This means that the court will in all…
THE HAGUE — The Supreme Court’s Attorney-General D.J.M.W. Parideans has concluded that the verdict against former Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor Maria Buncamper-Molanus for tax fraud is valid but that her punishment has to be lowered because the Supreme Court took too long to handle the cassation. Attorney Claudia Reijntjes-Wendenburg handled the case at the Supreme Court for Buncamper-Molanus and her husband Claudius. On October 15, 2018, the Common Court of Justice sentenced both Buncampers on appeal to a 25,000 guilders fine and 240 hours of community service. They filed for cassation eleven days after this verdict.…
PHILIPSBURG — In the first quarter of 2025 St. Maarten will be evaluated by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF). “We should have started with the preparations last year but unfortunately we have not managed to do that due to the pandemic,” says Ligia Stella, the director of St. Maarten’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU, often referred to by its Dutch acronym MOT in answer to questions posed to her via email by StMaartenNews.com. Stella did not directly react to the suggestion that some consider that the powers that come with her position make her “the eighth minister with parliamentary…
PHILIPSBURG — After an initial go-ahead for the planning of this year’s Carnival, the Council of Ministers decided in its meeting of Monday, January 26, to cancel the event. The Heineken Regatta is also off the books for this year. The decision of the St Maarten Carnival Development Foundation (SCDF) to go ahead with the planning of Carnival triggered outcries from citizens who considered holding such an event against the background of the COVID-19 pandemic irresponsible. But the plans soon began to unravel. The Council of Ministers gave its conditional approval on January 14, but ten days later three major…
PHILIPSBURG — It is a bit too strong to say that the wheels are coming off the wagon, but the fact remains that within half a year a second candidate for the United People’s party (UP) has canceled his membership. In June 2020 attorney Cor Merx left the party and now Jacques Heemskerk has followed his example. In a letter to UP’s secretary-general dated January 25, Heemskerk lists twelve grievances as the reasons why he “cannot stand with the current vision, approach and behavior of the UP” any longer. Heemskerk was the number 16 candidate op the UP list for…
