PHILIPBURG – Party for Progress Members of Parliament Melissa Gumbs and Raeyhon Peterson walked out of an online meeting of parliament on Monday when it was about to handle the resignation of the (already departed) Chief Financial Officer at the airport. The meeting had to be adjourned because after the departure of Gumbs and Peterson it no longer had a quorum. In a way, the PFP wrote history: it is the first faction to log off from a digital meeting of parliament. PFP party leader Gumbs issued a statement to clarify the decision to leave. “The personal decision of a…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG – Use the balance of the World Bank Trust Fund to finance a $200 million emergency economic response to support the local economy. That is the focus of a proposal by a private sector task force to the Ministry of Tourism and Economic Affairs (TEATT). The business community will need support for a period of seven to eight months, its report states. The suggested measures include 90 percent payroll subsidy for a period of three months and a 75 percent subsidy for the next five months. Fixed expenditures should be fully covered according to the proposal. It furthermore suggests…
PHILIPSBURG – CIBC First Caribbean donates $250,000 through its international ComTrust Foundation for the purchase of COVID-19 testing kits to the sixteen countries across the Caribbean where it operates. If evenly divided, each country will receive $15,625. The bank will make its donations through its operating companies in each country. Colette Delaney, the bank’s Chief Executive Officer and also the chairlady of the Comtrust Foundation, announced the donations in a press statement, saying, “Testing was one of the main weapons in the arsenal against the spread of the disease. Community spread is one of the main ways the virus is…
On St. Maarten, banks and the government are advising the general population to use guilders as much as possible, as a way to save dollars. I agree wholeheartedly with this advice. Here is why. When the dollars stop flowing into our economy, using guilders for our daily transactions will keep our economy going and save the dollars to pay for our imports. When those dollars run out, we will have to use our ‘gold backed’-Guilder to buy new dollars to pay for new imports. Hence the title of this article, The Golden Guilder.
By Cdr. Bud Slabbaert In these difficult times when we know that economic hardships have to be countered and solutions need to be found, there are realistic opportunities. There is one development model that may be the solution to contribute to three needs that are important under the current and short-term circumstances: a desperate need for income when employment is not available a cornerstone for diversification of an economy rejuvenating or strengthening the middle class. It may come in two steps. The first step would be the development of ‘home industry’ or originally called ‘cottage industry’ and sometimes mentioned as…
By Hilbert Haar The Indian Merchants Association (IMA) is among the private sector organizations that chose the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) not even a week ago “to speak on its behalf for continued representation and information.” But only a few days later the IMA broke ranks and issued a press release of its own under the ominous headline ‘Economic doom, mass closures and layoffs on the horizon for St. Maarten’. As far as content goes, the press release does not differ significantly from what the SHTA communicated earlier. But there is more to it. One of the…
~ Economic Doom, Mass Closures and Layoffs on the Horizon for Sint Maarten. ~ PHILIPSBURG — In reference to the proposed draft Stimulus Plan, which was made public, the Indian Merchants Association (IMA), SMTA, SHTA and SMMTA expresses its shock at the callous disregard of St. Maarten employees and businesses in general and the economy in particular during these unprecedented testing times of crisis in the form of a Global Pandemic. While the focus of the policy makers has been mainly on people who can face unemployment or self-employed persons, it fails to address the real issues and hardships of…
By Hilbert Haar To write that these are challenging times qualifies as the understatement of the century. But here we are, smack in the middle of an unprecedented crisis that has turned all of our lives upside down. The only certainty we have right now is that nothing is certain anymore. Businesses are teetering on the brink of extinction and when businesses go down their employees go with them. When there is no income and all reserves are exhausted there will be no more food on the table. It’s a bloody nightmare, no two ways about it. And in the…
PHILIPSBURG – Within three to six months 45 percent of workers currently employed in the private sector will lose their jobs. This appears from a survey among 580 businesses by the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade association (SHTA). “Extrapolated to all active businesses this would mean the total number of unemployed could grow to well over 9,000,” the SHTA says in a press statement. The dramatic outcome of the survey assumes a best-case scenario – in other words, reality could turn out to be even worse. Within 72 hours, 580 companies reacted to the SHTA’s call for participation in the…
PHILIPSBURG – Poor people in St. Maarten run a high risk of contracting severe symptoms of the corona-virus (COVID-19) according to Drs. Raymond Jessurun of the St. Maarten Anti-Poverty Platform and the St. Maarten Consumers Coalition. Jessurun expressed his concerns during a press conference last week Thursday, on March 26. Jessurun said that 94 percent of the population lives in “poor and needy households” and that the majority of these people are at risk for ailments like high blood pressure and obesity, while others already suffer from cardiovascular diseases or diabetes. “If their immune system is weakened and they are…
