PHILIPSBURG – St. Maarten and Curacao will remain under financial supervision until at least 2021. The committee that evaluated the countries’ level of compliance with the Kingdom law financial supervision writes this in its report that was sent to the Second Chamber in The Hague on Monday, January 16. “Steunend op eigen kracht maar het de wil elkander bij te staan” is the title the committee gave to its report. The quote, meaning: “Relying on our own strength but with the preparedness to support each other” stems from a speech former Queen Juliana made on Radio Oranje on December 6,…
Author: The Publisher
By Hilbert Haar Insel Air is one step away from bankruptcy. That much is clear from the recent ruling by the Court in First Instance that withheld its approval from the homologation accord with the airline’s creditors. In December all seemed to look still fine and dandy. Intercaribbean, the Turks and Caicos-based airline founded by Lyndon Gardiner in 1991, offered to finance the agreement to the tune of $11 million. In exchange, Intercaribbean would acquire the shares of Insel Air. But somehow between that court ruling in December and the deadline for Intercaribbean to present a guarantee for its promises…
PHILIPSBURG – Troubled airline Insel Air came one step closer to bankruptcy this week after the Court in First Instance withheld its approval of the so-called homologation agreement with its creditors. Intercaribbean, the Turks and Caicos-based airline that is willing to extend a credit of more than $11 million in exchange for the Insel Air shares has so far not satisfied the court with a solid guarantee that it will indeed makes these funds available. Intercaribbean, founded by Lyndon Gardiner in 1991, considers appealing the court ruling. The creditors reached an agreement with Insel Air in December of last year.…
Philipsburg — Since the honourable Minister of Transportation, Stuart Johnson, left the Wednesday’s Council of Minister’s press briefing without taking questions from the media, we would like to pose the following questions about the FAA standing of the St. Maarten Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) to the minister via this medium. StMaartenNews.com has been reliably informed that the Department of Civil Aviation has submitted a recent report to the Minister with a status update regarding the standing of the St. Maarten Civil Aviation Authority as it pertains to the FAA Category 1 status achievement in the near future. We would like…
PHILIPSBURG — There has been no clear indication from the Council of Ministers of how long it will take to pay back the Euros 100 million which was offered to the Government of St. Maarten from the Netherlands to have the Princess Juliana International fully renovated to the post hurricane status. During the Council of Ministers press conference the Deputy Prime Minister Wycliffe Smith and Minister of Justice Cornelius De Weever made an attempt to answer the question on how long it will take to pay back the loan and grant to the Netherlands for the airport. Deputy Prime Minister…
By Hilbert Haar Had the government been a private company it would have gone out of business a long time ago and most ministers would have been locked up for the way they squandered the money they are supposed to manage. That is the rather sad, though not unexpected, conclusion I draw from the General Audit Chamber’s report about the country’s 2016 financial statement. When ministers break the law by spending money that is not in their budget, they are sending a message that will inspire ordinary citizens to do the same thing. This results, as we have seen since…
PHILIPSBURG – The government’s 2016 financial statements contain “material errors of profound influence,” the General Audit Chamber writes in its Compliance Audit, a document that was presented to parliament on Monday, January 14. The audit establishes that “ministries are not in control of public funds as far as public tendering is concerned” and hints in veiled terms at possible corruption. Finance Minister Perry Geerlings – who was not in office in 2016 – acknowledged the shortcomings in a reaction to the Audit Chamber, saying that the Plan of Approach Financial Management will tackle all deficiencies and that this should lead…
By Dr. Rhoda Arrindell Chapter 1 of the States Regulation (aka Constitution) of Sint Maarten, in its English translation of the Dutch original states in Article 1.3 that: “By national ordinance the national flag, the coat of arms and the national anthem of Sint Maarten shall be enacted.” The coat of arms and national anthem had been enacted by Island Council resolutions before 10-10-10, and Parliament thereafter adopted them in the transition to the present status. So, why hasn’t Parliament to date passed legislation to enact a “national anthem”? A quick look backwards may shed light. The debate of a…
An interesting question was posed today on Facebook. The poster wanted to know how the Shutdown in the USA, the Yellow Vests issues in France and the Russian bombers in Venezuela might affect our one pillar economy. A good question and it would not hurt to think about the possible scenarios that can play out leading to tourists stopping coming to our island. Therefore we are calling on our leadership in the business sector, in the government sector and in the private sector to form a taskforce to address this issue and be proactive in finding ways to mitigate the…
By Hilbert Haar Insurance company Ennia is struggling, to put it mildly. Its management and members of the supervisory board, including major shareholder Hushang Ansary, have been fired and the company is now controlled by the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten. Ennia’s insolvency deficit is a dazzling number and in the poker game between major shareholder Ansary and the Central Bank millions of dollars are at stake. What does all this mean for Ennia’s clients, the policyholders? Let’s first put Ennia’s position in the insurance market in Curacao and St. Maarten into perspective. According to court documents, the…
