CUPECOY — Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin and Governor Eugene Holiday addressed the challenges and opportunities on shaping sustainable economic recovery in St. Maarten at the 8th Governor’s Symposium on Friday, June 21, 2019. During his opening speech, Governor Holiday discussed the impacts of hurricanes Irma and Maria on the economy of St. Maarten. From a per capita income of 26,163 USD, it dropped to 23,663 USD between 2017 and 2018. Hurricanes Irma and Maria resulted to damages and losses on St. Maarten, costing 2.7 million USD which is over 250% of GDP. The debt-to-GDP ration also increased by almost 10…
Author: The Publisher
CUPECOY — His Excellency the Governor Drs. Eugene Holiday adequately set the tone for the 2019 Governor’s Symposium which was held at the American University of the Caribbean campus in Cupecoy on Friday. In his opening remarks he said that the impact of the hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 has set the policies that shaped the economic recovery. “In the 2017 CARICOM conference which was supported by the UNDP it was estimated that the recovery cost surpassed some US$5 billion and in some countries it surpassed some 3.5 times it’s GDP,” said Holiday. He quoted the CARICOM Secretary General…
Modern Day Slavery Dear community of Sint Maarten, Certain things have been going on lately that need to shared, my article is based on people who are experiencing these real life matters at the moment. Our justice system is being continuously tampered with, prosecutors are undermining and situations in our correctional facility are unhealthy. Sinta Duro ( Sit Tight) Sometimes we use the word but we rarely take time to understand what the word means therefore I took the time to look up the word ” Justice”. I found that Justice means Fairness; which means: A just behavior or treatment.…
By Hilbert Haar When you publish a story about a rather sensitive subject – like plans to sell the port of St. Maarten to a third party, combined with whispers about the formation of a broad coalition – it tends to spread like wildfire. Is it true? Is it melee? And who on earth leaked that information? It is all understandable because this is human nature: we like to know things and if we don’t know them we make them up. So it went with the story I wrote under the headline ‘Global Ports Holding eyeballs the cruise port in…
By Hilbert Haar PHILIPSBURG – Global Ports Holding is the world’s largest operator of cruise ports. Soon it could be operating the port in Philipsburg as well, if a loosely defined group of makers and shakers gets its way. Something is brewing behind the scenes that fits with the coalition’s request for Minister Miklos Giterson (VROMI) and Cornelius de Weever (Justice) to resign. On a usually sunny terrace somewhere in Cupecoy a group of men comes together on a regular basis – not just for drinks, but for discussions about the future of St. Maarten. From a diverse group of…
Published June 19, 2019, in The Daily Herald: Dear editor, In April I wrote an article under the headline ‘Heyliger’s bribery allegations have a long (family) history.’ It appeared on the independent news website stmaartennews.com on April 9 or 10 of this year. More than two months later one Adrian Lista – a grandson of Claude Wathey, or so I’ve been told – showed in a letter to the editor of the Daily Herald how upset he was about this piece. In itself, I find it rather weird to react to an article that appeared on one platform – stmaartennews.com…
PHILIPSBURG — The Prosecutor’s Office on St. Maarten finally released the passport of Theo Heyliger to his wife, Grisha Heyliger-Marten, on the afternoon of Monday, June 17, 2019. This was necessary in order for Heyliger to be able to travel to Boston, Massachusetts, in the USA for urgent medical treatment of his stage one kidney cancer. Heyliger had to surrender his passport as one of the conditions for release from prison where he was awaiting trial on charges brought against him by the Prosecutor’s Officer in February of this year. The Prosecutor’s Office initially said it had not received all…
In an effort to bring awareness to the many ways you can make a little extra money here on St. Maarten as a side hustle besides your regular paying job, StMaartenNews.com decided to post a topic on this subject matter on its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/StMaartenNewsDotCom. The post itself reached 4,600 people directly and generated 135 engagements with 56 people reacting to the post with Likes, Loves and Wows. The post generated 13 shares which boosted the total reach to 5,331 people with a total of 328 engagements. Fair to say, there are a lot of people interested in knowing…
PHILIPSBURG — Member of Parliament Rolando Brison on Sunday said regrettably that his first initiative law is falling behind due to waiting on answers from the government of St. Maarten. The legislation MP Brison referred to was the law aimed at authorizing government to undertake the sale proper sale of St. Maarten’s shares in United Telecommunication Services (UTS). “A total of just 12 questions were posed by Members of Parliament that need to be answered by the Ministers of Finance and Justice. These questions were posed in the Central Committee handling of the draft initiative law, which is aimed at…
by Seth Miller Can cooperation and market liberalization beat out protectionist interests in the Caribbean? The 2019 Caribavia conference wasted little time in bringing that question to the forefront. With representatives from airlines, tourism boards, regulators and governments gathered together in St. Maarten the scene was set for a lively debate. Core to the discussion was the question of whether external growth factors could benefit the islands in a way that offsets the risk of potential damage to their local operators. Few countries want to see their home airlines pushed out of business, but the business case for small, single…
