PHILIPSBURG – The dispute regulation and waste processing were two of the main items on the agenda of the Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation (IPKO) in The Hague. After more than eight years of discussion, the IPKO delegations of the Netherlands, Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten decided this week to put pressure on the Dutch government to get on with by setting two deadlines: June 18 and November 1. By June 18, the Dutch Parliament and the Senate want to receive a reaction from State Secretary Raymond Knops to a letter they wrote to him from the IPKO about the dispute regulation.…
Author: The Publisher
Willemstad – The Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) has, in accordance with paragraph 1 of article 7 of the Central Bank Statute for Curacao and Sint Maarten (the Bank charter), decided to withdraw from circulation all denominations of the Netherlands-Antillean guilder banknotes issued from 1986 to 1994 as per July 31, 2018. This includes the NAf 5, NAf 10, NAf 25, NAf 50, NAf 100 and NAf 250 denominations of the native birds series without the gold-colored foil print. Consequently, banknotes with the mentioned years of issue will no longer have the legal tender status as of…
Philipsburg – President of the University of St. Martin (USM) Dr. Antonio Carmona Báez insists that in order to move forward, St. Maarten must build a solid and centralised system of higher education and scientific research. “Financing foundations, signing MOUs and providing trainings will not lead to sustainable recovery, nor will it advance the socio-economic and environmental conditions needed by the community to build a healthy society”, said Dr. Carmona Báez in written statements delivered to the press on Friday. “It is not possible for a country to develop sustainably without a state financed university.” Last Monday, Dr. Carmona attended…
Dear Editor, I have listened, heard, and read the recent discussions and workshops on hurricane preparedness. For this Hurricane season which officially starts June 1st, 2018. As a Community spirited person, my motto for any hurricane season is to “Prepare for the worst and pray for the best”. I would like to advise all Community Councils to start going around in their district and speaking to their residents to start cleaning up their yard of debris and pruning their trees. We can’t wait on Government to do everything for us. We as community leaders need to start working together and…
PHILIPSBURG – If a hurricane hit St. Maarten tomorrow –it won’t, but still – the currently available hurricane shelters would only be able to accommodate around 267 citizens, it appears from answers the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labor provided to answers stmaartennews.com posed about the state of local hurricane shelters. “We have to be prepared for the worst. There has to be sufficient shelter-capacity and that is not the case yet,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during his visit to St. Maarten earlier in May. But what is sufficient? If St. Maarten has, say, 40,000 inhabitants…
GREAT BAY – On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the Council of Ministers (COM) met with two members of the newly instated World Bank Trust Fund Steering Committee, namely the representative from Sint Maarten, Marcel Gumbs, and the representative from the Netherlands, Frans Weekers. Based on the agreement that was entered into by the Government of the Netherlands and the World Bank on April 16, 2018, a Steering Committee had to be established as the governance body of the Trust Fund. The Steering Committee consists of a representative of the World Bank, a representative from the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom…
2018 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON Message by the Prime Minister of Sint Maarten Hon. Leona Romeo-Marlin To the people of Sint Maarten and guests visiting our shores, today June 1st marks the official start of the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season. However, the first named storm of the season, Sub-Tropical Storm Alberto, formed late last week and made landfall on Monday in the U.S. State of Florida. This represents a reminder of how important it is to be PREPARED! At the beginning of every season, every household and business, needs to prepare for the season. This is an individual responsibility. Everyone in…
By Hilbert Haar The 2018 budget contains a riddle that I have not been able to solve, despite several attempts to get clarity from those who submitted that budget to Parliament. So maybe there is someone out there who knows more about this little conundrum. This is the case. The chapter about the Ministry of General Affairs contains a heading that reads: Risco’s binnen de Beleidsuitvoering (Risks within the execution of policies). It describes the risks the ministry is facing during the budget year that could potentially jeopardize the execution of its tasks or the financing of its projects. Under…
By Hilbert Haar In September 2016 the Court in first Instance acquitted all suspects in the Masbangu-case. That they were later sentenced on appeal is irrelevant for the point I want to make here. Masbangu was about a bunch of police officers who went to the campaign office of the United People’s party in 2010 in an attempt to get money for their vote. A party-representative gave them some money. Case closed: bribery. The court established that the police officers had asked for money and that the party representative had given them money. Why then the acquittal? The court ruled…
PHILIPSBURG – The Court in First Instance sentenced Secell Daniel Common on Wednesday afternoon to 120 hours of community service for hitting the 13-year old son Jeremiah of his neighbor, who happens to be a warden at the Point Blanche prison. Of the sentence, 60 hours are conditional, and common received a reduction of 4 hours on the remaining community service for the two days he spent behind bars after the incident that took place on April 16. The public prosecutor noted that the 37-year old defendant had confessed that he had hit the boy on his head with an…
