PHILIPSBURG – The bitter fight between insurance company ENNIA and its major shareholder Hushang Ansary has resulted in several court cases and there are more to come. From the 200-page petition attorneys Karina Keizer and Sabine Altena have filed with the court in Curacao on behalf of ENNIA emerges the picture of a man who hates criticism and who takes absolute power for granted. Loyalty and trust are more important than competency, according to Ansary, who once pointed out to ENNIA managers that “competence can be replaced.” Ansary has been accused of being the architect of a complex of initiatives…
Author: The Publisher
Dear Editor, People need to be made seriously and individually accountable. It must hurt them ultimately in their own pocket if they so wish to abuse the phone system at their place of work. Read: Unpaid Advice: How Government Can Cut Phone Costs There you have it Minister of Finance. A very simple Strategy and Approach. And we the People of Sint Maarten want you to make public from these Investigative Random Findings where these abusive practices are the most. I am challenging the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister to take this Approach. Present it to the Council…
PHILIPSBURG – The Supreme Court of the Netherlands ruled on Friday that Alegria Real Estate does not have to honor the rights of timeshare-owners at the former Caravanserai Beach Resort. The timeshare-owners, united in the Timeshare Owners at Caravanserai Association (TOCA) may yet see their investments go up in smoke, after the Court of Appeals had still ruled in their favor in December 2018. The Supreme Court reversed this ruling and has now sent it back to the appeals court for a new ruling. The judgement of the Supreme Court ruling can read (in Dutch) online here: http://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:HR:2020:1499 Kildare Properties…
PHILIPSBURG — “St Maarten’s Government Crazy Phone Bills” is the headline heading up an article on the website of our colleague in the media business, Mervin Hanley of THG News Today. That one certainly caught our attention. The St. Maarten government’s crazy phone bills also caught the attention of Achken R. Richardson, an engineer with years of experience dealing with government. But first some background information to led to this report. During the Council of Ministers’ weekly press briefing on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020, Minister of Finance, Ardwell Irion, informed the media that for the last couple of months the…
PHILIPSBURG — The government, led by Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs, wants a St. Maarten version of the Dutch Individual Health Care Professions Act (Wet BIG). This is stated in the NA-UP Governing Program 2020-2024(*) that was published on September 12th. The BIG ordinance regulates medical liability and determines which actions are reserved exclusively for qualified doctors with specific titles. In the Netherlands, all healthcare providers – doctors, physician assistants, nurses, therapists, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, dieticians – can submit an application to be registered in the BIG register to be able to hold their title. The register is public; anyone can…
PHILIPSBURG – The Court in First Instance has dissolved the labor contract of Mark Mingo with the St. Maarten Harbour Holding Company. The company does not have to pay its former director any compensation. The court decision reveals the salary the harbor paid Mingo: 47,969 guilders ($26,798) gross per month – an annual salary of 575,628 guilders ($321,580). Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs earns 21,925 guilders ($12,249) gross per month, or 263,100 guilders ($146,983) per year. After the 25 percent salary cut the Kingdom wants to impose, her income goes down to $110,237 gross per year. Mingo’s salary was therefore almost…
CAY HILL — Nobody knows what happened that night. The next morning, August 25, 2020, Caulette Julien was found dead in the isolation cell of the Mental Health Foundation. She was 43 years old. The responsible physician, Dr. Kitty Pelswijk, was quarantined at home for a fortnight because of COVID-19. The tragedy took place under the watch of interim director Eileen Healy. The former student of the MAC School and St. Maarten Academy was found lying on the floor of the isolation cell. How long she lay there in the small, bare space is not known. According to the BIG…
Dear Publishers, On behalf of the foundation, our interim director Eileen Healy would like to rectify allegations stated in an article titled “Medical recognition divisive issue at Mental Health Foundation” published by StMaartenNews.com on September 22nd as follows: It is not my custom to react to articles in the media that are attempting to damage our local institutions and specifically healthcare facilities. These articles not only threaten the extremely hard work of our St. Maarten locals, but jeopardizes the care so urgently needed at this time. The Mental Health Foundation is a government established foundation founded by the Ministry of…
CAY HILL — The board of the Mental Health Foundation has elected a new interim director whose name does not appear in the BIG register. Dr. Kitty Pelswijk, who also acts as medical coordinator, is not officially allowed to use the title of doctor in the Netherlands and, if it is up to Minister of VSA Richard Panneflek, soon not in St. Maarten either. The Ministry of VSA announces that the finalization of the legal trajectory for the mandatory registration of medical professionals is a priority for minister Richard Panneflek. The so-called BIG ordinance (National Ordinance on Individual Medical Professionals)…
PHILIPSBURG – “If this ship sinks we all sink together,” is the conclusion of an opinion HBN Law attorney Michelle Wever wrote about the potential consequences of measures the Central Bank of Aruba took back in March to limit the flight of capital to foreign countries. The Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten took similar measures around the same time, so what Wever wrote about Aruba also applies to St. Maarten. The central bank measure aims to protect the peg of the Aruban florin (and the Antillean guilder) to the American dollar. Wever assumes that the measure to prevent…
