MADAME ESTATE — During the afternoon of Easter Monday, April 22, 2019, news reaching our news desk indicated that a daring broad day robbery took place at the Cost Pro Supermarket in Madame Estate whereby all cash registers were ripped out and stolen while the supermarket was open for normal business operation. StMaartenNews.com contacted the management of the supermarket for further information on this high day robbery. According to General Manager, Peter J. GIttens, there were at least 4 robbers of which 3 were armed with guns and a getaway car (driver) on the outside. The armed robbery took place…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — On April 11 MP Rolando Brison informed StMaartenNews.com that he has submitted a draft initiative law about the sale of the United Telecommunications Services (UTS) N.V. shares that are owned by the St. Maarten government. St. Maarten owns a 12,5% stake in UTS. Just recently agreement was reached between the telecommunications company, its majority shareholder (which is the government of Curacao with a 87,5% stake) and the buyer, Liberty Latin America (LLA), Inc. MP Brison completed this initiative draft law within a two weeks period. The member of Parliament took this initiative as the Minister Justice in his…
~ St. Maarten removed from IASA List ~ PHILIPSBURG — St. Maarten was recently removed from the International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) list on which it was previously listed as a Category 2 (CAT 2) Country. St. Maarten’s removal is based on there being no current St. Maarten airline servicing any United States destination, neither has there been a codeshare agreement with any US carrier and a St. Maarten airline for 4 years. It is standard under such conditions for the International Program and Policy division of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT)…
PHILIPSBURG – “What they did to his grandfather they are now doing to Theo.” That line, spoken in Parliament by United Democrats MP Franklin Meyers sums up the sentiment in the political arena about the legal troubles of Theo Heyliger, by now the former leader of the UD.
~ advises on alternatives ~ PHILIPSBURG—“In my opinion pensioners should not be paying wage taxes or income taxes,” said President of WIFOL Theophilus Thompson. According to him they have already contributed to social economic development and what they are receiving is solidarity social returns because of the contributions that they have made, he said. “What they have done is an investment in the earlier years and as a result they are getting back some returns,” said Thompson. He feels that the seniors should not be at that stage paying any levies on the benefit that they are receiving. However, if…
PHILIPSBURG — Government needs to be proactive instead of reactive to stem the high cost of services, goods and labor since the passage of the hurricanes of 2017. “We have seen the house rents, food commodities and cost of housing skyrocket to astronomical prices,” said the president of WIFOL Theophilus Thompson. He mentioned that the cost of living has risen to at least 200% while income/wages remain the same and in some cases it has declined. He explained that in a capitalist system it is designed in such a way that advantage is taken, opportunities are looked at where there…
By Hilbert Haar The expression caught between a rock and a hard place does not begin to describe the situation St. Maarten finds itself in now that the Kingdom Council of Ministers has put conditions in place for the provision of liquidity support. I can already hear members of Parliament moan about abuse of power by the Netherlands, but the conditions the Kingdom put on the table on Friday are mostly self-inflicted injuries. Some of them can be cured easily and doing this quickly would at least show the Kingdom a sign of good will. It would buy the country…
THE HAGUE — St. Maarten will only get liquidity support from the Netherlands in 2019 if it complies with several conditions the Kingdom Council of Ministers has put in place. “These conditions see – among other things – to the detention capacity, the remuneration and fringe benefits for members of parliament, the deployment of the National Police and pension reform,” State Secretary Raymond Knops (Kingdom Relations) wrote in a letter dated April 5 to the Second Chamber. While the letter does not mention further details, the Kingdom Council of Ministers apparently demands that the country increases the detention capacity at…
By Hilbert Haar When parliaments speak, governments have to listen. Those iconic words came from Jeroen Recourt, leader of the Dutch delegation after a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation (Ipko) in 2015. Recourt thought that establishing a dispute regulation was only a matter of months after the four Ipko-delegations had reached an agreement. The dispute regulator would have to be an independent body, its rulings had to be binding and countries could only submit legal disputes to the regulator. That Recourt was overly optimistic at the time is clear by now. Years went by without a dispute regulation. And…
PHILIPSURG — Members of Parliament Rolando Brison, Silveria Jacobs, Tamara Leonard Claude Peterson will travel to the Netherlands for an April 13 to 21 mission to discuss the upcoming vote in the Dutch parliament about the draft dispute regulation State Secretary Raymond Knops submitted to parliament on November 29 of last year. Knops’ draft does not sit well with the parliaments of St. Maarten, Curacao and Aruba. During an Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation (Ipko) in 2015 the delegations of the Netherlands and the delegations of the three Caribbean constituent countries in the kingdom reached an historic agreement about the dispute regulation…
