PHILIPSBURG — At the recent committee of finance meeting on Wednesday August 22nd with the Central Bank, Member of Parliament and USP Faction Leader Rolando Brison had expressed some serious concerns about the various issues the community faces in the banking sector, as well as the urgent measures the Central Bank and Public Prosecutor has had to take against the Ennia conglomerate and its largest asset, the Mullet Bay property. “What is the Central Bank doing to protect our local insured and pensioners and what are we doing to protect the asset of Mullet Bay with the measures being taken?…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — On Monday, August 20th, Member of Parliament and SMCP Faction Leader, Mr. Claude “Chacho” Peterson and Faction Staff Mr. Benjamin Bell, met with the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Ronald Halman and Secretary-General, Mrs. Joane Dovale-Meit of the St. Maarten General Audit Chamber (GAC) to get an orientation of the organization and receive a tour of the new offices at the request of the MP. The discussion concerned the role of the GAC as one of the High Councils of State and their history, services and reports. Some of the points discussed during the meeting was the importance of getting up to…
Philipsburg, August 23rd, 2018 — Gracita states; “ the recent political turmoil that dominated the local air-waves regarding the possible fall of the present ‘government’, once more reigned supreme at the kitchen tables of residents and visitors our Island. This is highly regrettable. Leaving speculations aside for the reason or reasons why this event caught on like one of our now infamous dump-wild-fires. This ‘ fake news’ served to magnify the fact that we still face unstable governments and lack of effective and decisive leadership at a critical time when focus should be on a cleaner, safer, beautiful Sint Maarten,…
By Fabian Badejo Just recently, my daughter told me, “on St. Martin, you are guilty until proven innocent and even then, you still remain guilty.” Her statement jolted my memory and then it came back to me: eight years ago, I had written an opinion piece titled: “Where there is smoke… Character assassination and the culture of suspicion.” At the time, I had absolutely no inkling that I would be roped in as a co-defendant in the ongoing case code-named “Colade,” which is yet to be heard in court. This is what I wrote then: “It takes a lifetime of…
By Hilbert Haar On a Thursday at 3 o’clock in the morning our train rolls into the main station in Irkutsk, with around 600,000 inhabitants one of the largest cities in Siberia. Finally we are out of the digital wilderness – we’ve had no internet since our trip began on Sunday. A few coffee places in the station are still (or already) open and we hang out there for a while with a Spanish couple, until we figure out that it is possible to check into our hostel – The Eight Floor – at this ungodly hour. The cab drivers…
By Hilbert Haar It is tempting to note that integrity issues have soared to the surface again in St. Maarten after the common Court of Justice gave the green light for the prosecution of MP Theo Heyliger. The suspicions are that the good MP attempted to bribe former MP Romain Laville back in 2012-2013. Let me first establish that these are suspicions – allegations, if you want. True or false, that will be up to the independent court to decide. Fabian Badejo recently published a statement suggesting that the allegations against St. Maarteners are inspired by a Dutch agenda aimed…
On August 24, 2018, Mrs B. Cannegieter, Mr C. Koster and the law firm BZSE Attorneys at Law/Tax Lawyers filed a petition for an injunction against Country Sint Maarten and the operator of the dump. The plaintiffs request the Court to order Government and the dump operator to ensure that the dump will no longer spread smoke, gasses and stench within three months after the Court’s ruling. They also request the Court to order Government to have an official institute, like the ‘Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu’, to conduct measurements to establish how toxic the fumes are. The plaintiffs base…
Dear Editor, Foreign Investment is of paramount importance for the future of St. Maarten. Not only does it involve money, jobs and development but for local communities it means stability, growth and an overall better standard of living and working conditions…… or so we are led to believe! Ultimately, every new Investor is free to create their own environment. They flash their money, are simply accepted and conveniently ignored by all Government departments to do exactly whatever they choose, with no moral obligations whatsoever. Labour laws, relationships with Unions and employment standards should be observed and adhered to but who…
PHILIPSBURG — The Special Unit Robberies of the Police Department in the ongoing investigating of attempted robbery of the Coliseum Casino on August 9, this morning, August 24th, attempted to carry out an arrest of a suspect in the Cay Hill area. The suspect after seeing the presence of the police at his residence fled in his vehicle. The police gave chase whereby the suspect lost control of his vehicle at the intersection of Kooyman and slammed into a vehicle on A.J.C. Brouwers Road injuring a passenger in that vehicle. The suspect in turn jumped from his vehicle and fled…
By Fabian Badejo The decision of the Joint Court of Justice to grant the Public Prosecutor’s Office permission to prosecute United Democrats (UD) leader, MP Theo Heyliger, continues to generate public discussion. However, the whole judicial system as it operates on St. Maarten, needs to be further scrutinized vis-à-vis the dispensation of justice. Justice, in a colonial setting, is different from justice in a sovereign nation. Throughout the history of colonialism, the judiciary functioned as one of the pillars upholding the system, usually under the pretext of maintaining “law and order”. But whose law? And whose order? St. Maarten, as…
