By Dr. Francio Guadeloupe, Jordi Halfman and Nicole Sanches When your house is on fire you do not fight about who is to blame or how the fire may have started. Before you do anything else, you try to minimize the damage and then you try to extinguish the fire. Burning houses. That seems the best way to describe the current situation on Sint Eustatius (Statia) and Sint Maarten: Caribbean parts of our Kingdom. The Statian government has been sent home by Secretary of State Knops. According to the Dutch government, this is due to an administrative culture best characterized…
Author: The Publisher
Philipsburg — On Friday February 9th at approximately 02.45 p.m. information came into the Emergency Dispatch of two unknown men suspiciously loading a white panel van with two large duffle bags. While loading the van an object which looked like a fire-arm dropped from one of these men. Immediately after receiving this information police patrols were ordered to intercept this van which was driving in the direction of Philipsburg. Shortly after the panel van with only the driver was stopped in front of the Sonesta Great Bay Hotel. During a search of the van two duffle-bags were found, each containing…
By Hilbert Haar The abuse of short term labor contracts has been a bee in the bonnet for many a politician over the past years. Friday was the time to pass legislation that would have been a good step in the right direction but the opposition parties stayed away from the meeting of parliament where this decision could have been taken. And therefore, chairman MP Theo Heyliger had no other option than closing the meeting; it will be rescheduled for another day. So what is this all about? Are our parliamentarians there to serve the interests of the people who,…
Philipsburg — The Cft board has visited St. Maarten and Saba this week. It was the first visit of Cft after the devastating Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September. On Saba we discussed financial and reconstruction matters, and concluded that financial management is of a high level. For Saba, the year 2018 promises to be one with many opportunities and challenges, for example the restoring of the harbor and the airport runway renovation. St. Eustatius has not been visited this week due to the announcement on Monday of the law on dereliction of duties and its passing on Monday and…
Philipsburg — The Basic Police Training (BPO) for the recruits that was postponed last year due to the passing of hurricanes Irma and Maria has restarted. Chief Inspector Rob Appelhof from Police Academy in the Netherlands in charge police training for the Dutch Caribbean has again arrived on Sint Maarten to restart this training. Rob Appelhof regularly travels to Sint Maarten on work related visits and was also on the island during the passing of hurricane Irma. He commends the police force for a job well done in the aftermath of the hurricanes with the focus on keeping Sint Maarten…
PHILIPSBURG – The €550 million reconstruction fund the Netherlands has made available to St. Maarten will be deposited as a grant into a trust fund at the World Bank. How the money will be spent and made available – in the form of grants or soft loans – is part of a process in which St. Maarten and the World Bank identify priorities for the reconstruction. State Secretary Raymond Knops said on Wednesday at a press conference that the current discussion is not only about loans and grants but also about the channels that will be used to disperse the…
GREAT BAY — Former Prime Minister William Marlin on Thursday attempted to clear the air on what he says are outright lies being planted in the community by members of the United Democrats to gain political mileage in the run up to snap parliamentary elections. Marlin made clear that his intention is to simply correct the lies being peddled by the party to gain sympathy from the electorate. Members of the party have been using issues such as the container at the border, the 2017 St. Maarten Day wreath laying photo op, and the Oyster Pond issue to claim that…
PHILIPSBURG – The trial of Keith F. – one of the suspects in the so-called Emerald-investigation – offered a candid insight in the way fraud was committed with inflated invoices at the Harbor Group of Companies on Thursday morning. The 53-year old owner of KG Construction invoiced the harbor between 2013 and 2016 for $891,901 and failed to report this income for income and turnover taxes. The prosecution put the fiscal disadvantage for the tax inspectorate at 756,618 guilders and demanded a 15 month prison sentence and a conditional fine of 250,000 guilders against the defendant. Unlike the defendants that…
PHILIPSBURG – Post Hurricane Irma insurance premiums are likely to go up between 30 and 60 percent according to Dwayne Elgin, chairman of the St. Maarten Insurance Association. Elgin mentioned the percentages on Thursday afternoon during a central committee meeting where he answered questions from members of parliament. Elgin said that the insurance companies had received 6,100 claims after Hurricane Irma, for a total value of $667,060,000. Of these claims, 4,764 (78 percent) have been settled and paid. The total payout so far is $303,700,000 (46 percent of all claimed damages. These numbers represent 85 percent of the insured market…
GREAT BAY — Sint Maarten Pride foundation board members Jadira Veen (president) and Barbara Cannegieter (secretary) sends a letter to his Excellency Eugene Holiday, Governor of Sint Maarten, and to the Dutch Representative in Philipsburg, Chris Johnson. In that letter Sint Maarten Pride foundation requests the intervention of the both the Governor and the Dutch King in the situation with the dump. The letter reads as follows: Your Excellency, The Sint Maarten Pride foundation, a community environmental nonprofit foundation, has been noting frequent violent landfill fires that have been flaring up before and after hurricane Irma. Even more worrisome is…
