PHILIPSBURG—There has been an increase of students applying for study financing this year. According the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Wycliffe Smith although some 267 students have applied only 109 have completed the applications with all the supporting documents that are required. Although it was not reported the disciplines that the students have chosen the Netherlands were chosen by some 67 students as the places for their higher education. The United States and Canada fell into second and third place while St. Maarten and the United Kingdom were chosen by some other students. Other places were the ABC…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — Some 40 students from various high schools have been nominated to receive the Kings and Queens’s awards by the Gifted Foundation. These students who have been making positive and outstanding contributions to their schools and communities in areas such as academics, athletics, community service, expressive arts and leadership, shows that there are focused youth on the island said Minister of Education Wycliffe Smith. “This is a good reminder at this time when negative news seem to be bombarding us especially as it relates to our young people,” said Smith. He mentioned that the awards should be shared and…
By Hilbert Haar There is no doubt that financial supervision is useful. St. Maarten agreed to this supervision when it obtained country status in 2010. The question is now: did financial supervision improve our country’s financial situation? Given the quandary St. Maarten finds itself in after Hurricane Irma it is tempting to answer this question with a full-blown no. And it is true, financial supervision did not perform miracles and the Board financial supervision (Cft) seems at times more like a paper tiger than a strict authority that keeps our sweet Sint Maarten land on the straight and narrow. One…
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,…
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…
