By Hilbert Haar Our island is facing the mother of all challenges – and even that is an understatement. The COVID-19 crises has laid bare what decision makers have known for a very, very long time: it is dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. Successive governments have however done exactly that by ramming themselves on their overfed breasts every time the annual number of cruise arrivals went up. But even before Hurricane Irma and even before the COVID-19 crisis hit, St. Maarten had its best years as a cruise destination already behind it. Gone from center stage…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG – Another advice from our Council of Advice is in. This time it is the advice regarding the United Nations–Decolonization–St. Maarten, as presented to the Council by the Parliament of St. Maarten. MP Wescot-Williams recently shared some insight on the matter: “This dossier has been circulating in Parliament since 2018, consisting of numerous documents and in the view of some, it is making a case for St. Maarten to ‘have its decolonization process completed’. “Looking back at the Parliament meeting of June 18th, in which the decision was taken to send this request to the Council of Advice, and…
Reports coming out of Curacao indicate that well-known people on St. Maarten allegedly received millions in payments over a number of years from companies linked to ENNIA Insurances. These payments supposedly were made using primarily insurance premium monies paid by premium holders at these ENNIA related companies. The reports indicate that these persons hardly worked for these payments. They were also not listed on any official payroll linked to any of these ENNIA related companies. However, it is debatable whether these payments were illegal. Even payments for a person’s loyalty can be considered legal. The only question that needs to…
PHILIPSBURG — The Herbal Awareness SXM group has been the recognized community leader for cannabis issues over many years, including two well-attended public Town Hall Meetings (April 2014 and June 2015), and numerous community media outlet interviews discussing the issues relating to the wide variety of cannabis products. On 17 May 2016, the Herbal Awareness SXM group made a detailed presentation to the St. Maarten Parliament, regarding the need to re-examine the legal status of cannabis, which includes significant potentials in the health and economic sectors of our society. On 10 June 2020, Herbal Awareness SXM officially became a legal…
PHILIPSBURG — With the re-opening of schools this year, the people of St. Martin are living the consequences of matters that have been ignored, not dealt with, or overlooked for the past decades. Education being compulsory on both sides of our island, it is heart-breaking to see what our youngsters are being put through and the way they are being dealt with at the Belle Vue check point while trying to get to their various schools on the French side of our island. They are being deprived of an education when they are not allowed to attend school. The fact…
PHILIPSBURG — Gracita Arrindell states: “the current state of governance is critical as our island continues to grapple with business closures, under- use of Trust Fund millions, archaic government IT network, administrators who congratulate themselves on the back for doing poorly what they are handsomely paid for. There is continued gross negligence of our infrastructure. Law abiding citizens loose faith as they ponder how much longer they can survive under the current circumstances of high unemployment, high taxation with poor representation”. “To make matters worse, the current administration is understandably under immense pressure from the current Dutch government to accept…
No one on St. Maarten, living and working on the island in the 70s and 80s, was not affected by Mullet Bay in one form or another. Every family had at least one or more relatives that worked at Mullet Bay. Many professionals today on St. Maarten started their careers at Mullet Bay. Can you imagine the psychological impact on people’s psyche what it means to have then Mullet Bay remain undeveloped for over 25 years? Can you imagine that a handful of people systematically kept Mullet Bay undeveloped for personal gain all these years? The financial, economic, and social…
Philipsburg St. Maarten, September 6, 2020 – With the opening line “The ongoing saga at our borders has to stop”, Member of Parliament, Sarah A. Wescot-Williams through the local Government requests that Foreign Affairs Minister S. Blok, takes up his responsibility with his counterpart in Paris. MP Wescot- Williams: The ongoing saga at our borders has to stop. Today it is closed coming into Philipsburg, tomorrow it is closed going into Marigot. We have no guarantee that the announced opening date by the French authorities will stand and furthermore that the borders will not be closed again for an indefinite…
by Cdr. Bud Slabbaert I don’t know when it was, the night of December 31, 2020 or December 2021, that I heard a leading politician make the statement: “We have seen hardship, we have seen triumph. We shall see more of both. We stood strong in faith. Giving freely what little we had and what little we were. Never doubting that we spent ourselves for a general good”. And then I woke up. It was only a dream. Dreams don’t label what time or year it was, and they don’t put a name on persons. Actually, the dream was much…
SINT MAARTEN (PHILIPSBURG) – The St. Maarten Chamber of Commerce & Industry (COCI) is in the final phase after steering the process leading to the establishment of the “Soualiga Employer Association (SEA).” The establishment of the SEA is part of the process of nominating various representatives to the high council of state the Social Economic Council (SER). A list of names will be submitted to the Prime Minister hopefully by the end of the week of September 7. President of the COCI Supervisory Board Benjamin Ortega, said on Friday that COCI was mandated by the Prime Minister back in April…
