CAY HILL — St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) is elated to announce that it has officially received the building permit for the construction of the new hospital for which a groundbreaking ceremony is planned on December 3rd, 2018. SMMC General Director, Kees Klarenbeek stated: “It is great to see that the new hospital project that we started to plan for back in 2015 has now come to a phase whereby we will officially break ground making way for the construction works to officially start!” Klarenbeek continued: “We want to thank the SMMC team for their dedication and patience, the Tripartite…
Author: The Publisher
By Hilbert Haar When I read that the anti-corruption taskforce (TBO) has started an investigation into the shenanigans at the Bureau Telecommunication and Post (BTP) I was not in the least surprised. Finally, I thought, somebody is taking action after the General Audit Chamber published a devastating report about BTP. Politics has failed us one more time. On November 25, 2015, I wrote an article for the Today newspaper about this report under the headline: Chaos at Bureau Telecommunication and Post with a flag that summed up the critical issues: outrageous salaries, expensive building and no responsibilities. If I understand…
FRENCH QUARTER — The Johnson family in French Quarter are “breathing easier” since they acquired their new home from the Collectivite earlier this week. The mobile home which is made in Croatia are among the homes that the Collectivite has apparently bought to house the residents who had lost everything during the passing of the storms in 2017. The family, who had no place to go after their home and appliances were lost in the storm, were given a tent to live in by the Collectivite with their two children. The tent was not large enough to house the entire…
By Hilbert Haar Anybody who has ever insured a car on our island on the French side knows one thing for sure: those insurances are much more expensive than the ones on the Dutch side. The reason for this price difference is obvious. Dutch-side insurers have limited their liability to 90,000 guilders, while French side insurers are not allowed to put any limit on their liability for personal injuries their clients suffer in traffic accidents. The limitation-clause in Dutch-side insurance policies is based on the law. The legislator has chosen to allow insurance companies to limit their liability to a…
PHILIPSBURG – The Common Court of Justice has ordered insurance company Nagico to pay close to $499,000 to a local company for a traffic accident that took place in 2000 on the French side. The court ruled that the limitation clause in Nagico’s car insurance policies is invalid on French territory. Car insurance in cheaper on the Dutch side of St. Maarten, mainly because Nagico has limited its liability to 90,000 guilders. That clause does not hold up if someone with a Dutch-side insurance gets involved in an accident on the French side, it appears from the November 16 court…
PHILIPSBURG — An 18 year old St. Maarten Academy student nearly lost his life while trying to get off a school bus when he was hit by a car traveling at high speed on Bishop Hill Road at about 6:30 on Tuesday morning. The female bus driver when questioned said that she had deployed the stop sign and the flashing lights to indicate that she was stopping. “I had pulled the bus diagonally across the road as it is done, to allow the students to enter safely. However the driver of the white Getz who was traveling very fast tried…
CAY HILL — St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) is inviting companies to pre-register for World Bank funded projects that will be up for public tenders and will be published shortly via SMMC’s website. SMMC has recently signed an agreement to receive a USD 25 million grant from the St. Maarten Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience Trust Fund that is funded by The Netherlands and managed by the World Bank. The grant will serve to improve services of the current hospital, while the new hospital is being built, and to upgrade the design of the new hospital to withstand category 5+ hurricanes.…
STATIA/ PHILIPSBURG—The judge in the Court of First Instance will hand out a decision in the hearing of the two cases presented by the people of St. Eustatius on December 11, 2018. According to reports on the hearing that was held in St. Eustatius on Tuesday November 20, the case of the Dutch law superseding international law which led to “the removal of the democratically elected government” and the injunction with regard to the removal Dutch representatives that was placed in the government were heard by the judge. During the hearing Clyde van Putten of St. Eustatius presented an eleven…
Willemstad/Philipsburg – Recently, the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) presented its Strategic Plan to the stakeholders in Sint Maarten. The Governor of Sint Maarten, as well as the government, representatives from the financial sector, and advisory bodies were invited to attend the presentation. The new strategy of the CBCS has 3 focus areas: the monetary stability of Curaçao and Sint Maarten, a stable and competitive financial sector and the development of a customer-friendly and innovative organization. These focus areas have been further developed in several strategic goals for the period 2018-2020. In her presentation, Mrs. Leila Matroos-Lasten,…
PHILIPSBURG — During an urgent meeting of Parliament on Monday, November 19, where the Minister of TEATT, Stuart Johnson together with management and staff of the PJIA Airport and the Harbor Group of Companies (Port) gave an update on the status of these two major ports for St. Maarten, member of Parliament Claude ‘Chacho” Peterson asked the question many people have been wondering: “Who is André Wright?” The MP wanted to know whether Wright was a consultant with the airport, if he is receiving a monthly retainer fee, what was his fee for the refinancing of the old loan and…
