By Hilbert Haar The call by MP Sarah Wescot-Williams to immediately put a stop to the payment of political pensions to ousted ministers and members of Parliament comes at a curious moment. It’s election time, remember? The St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) jumped on the bandwagon to support Wescot-Williams’ initiative, adding a proposal to cut the salaries of members of Parliament by 30 percent. It all makes sense, but it is not going to happen. Why? Because the people who will be affected by such measures are the people who will have to approve these proposals. The fifteen…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG – The Windward Islands Bank has taken a loss of 6 million guilders on the grace period it extended after Hurricane Irma to private clients, WIB-director Derek Downes, chairman of the Bankers Association, said during a meeting of the finance committee of Parliament on Tuesday morning. The WIB offered clients in good standing a grace period of six months and turned the interest rate for that period to zero. The bank offered business clients a 3-month grace period. Downes said that the bank is prepared to extend it for an additional three months to businesses who were not, or…
Cole Bay — Prime Minister Leona Romeo Marlin and Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever visited the scene of the fire in Cole Bay Tuesday night to get a first-hand view of the situation. At the same time, the aforementioned would like to thank the Chief of the Fire Department and the staff of the Fire Department (men and women) for their successful actions in keeping the fire under control and preventing it from spreading to other nearby businesses. The safety of the fire officers was of concern to the Prime Minister as she was informed that a floor in…
GREAT BAY – The Fire Department had its hands full on Tuesday morning having to simultaneously deal with two fires in Cole Bay. The Fire Department responded with four fire trucks and two water trucks to a fire in a warehouse complex in Cole Bay. The trucks arrived on the scene around 10.30am shortly after receiving the fire alarm. The fire sent billowing black smoke into the air. The cause of the fire after an investigation is a result of welding that was taking place on the roof of the building. The warehouse belonged to a business and the building…
Simpson Bay — The management and staff of the Princess Juliana International (PJIA) SXM Airport continues its efforts to rebuild St. Maarten’s award-winning airport. The Supervisory Board and Management of the Princess Juliana International Airport is aware that people are curious about the pace of the recovery and reconstruction at PJIA. The travel industry, stakeholders and the public at large can rest assured that the PJIA speedy recovery and reconstruction is on track. Despite the devastating damage caused by hurricanes Irma and Maria, the Princess Juliana International Airport team was able to restore basic operations on October 10, 2017. Since…
GREAT BAY — The SHTA has taken note of a Facebook message by President of Parliament, Ms. Sarah-Wescot-Williams, in which she explains the law on redundancy pay for MP’s and Ministers. According to Ms. Wescot-Williams, redundancy pay works for “any amount of time served, one (a MP or Minister: Ed) receives the minimum of 1 year monthly payments. If a person serves for more than one year, then one is entitled to equal amount served. In other words, if you serve 4 months, you are entitled to 1 year, and if you serve 13 months, you are entitled to 13…
Cole Bay — The Sint Maarten Nature Foundation assisted law enforcement officers with battling the Cole Bay Fire on Tuesday Morning. Nature Foundation staff noticed a large fire close to the organization’s Cole Bay office and upon responding to the event noticed that law enforcement personnel were responding without protective facemasks protecting officers from the smoke caused by the fire. The Foundation made facemasks available to responding law-enforcement personnel. In cooperation with Coast Guard officers the Foundation handed out protective facemasks the organization has been handing out to protect the community from the fires at the Philipsburg landfill officers at…
Philipsburg — The St. Maarten Tourism Bureau together with the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) recently hosted the Strategic Marketing Summit with the main theme ‘Marketing & Promoting St. Maarten Moving Forward’. Amongst the attendees were managers from several hotel properties, activities and tour providers, together with representatives from Princess Juliana International Airport, Port St. Maarten, Chamber of Commerce, French Tourist Office, PDP Marina, St. Maarten Yacht Club and Expedia. In addition, representatives from several executive entities within the Ministry of TEATT were also present to participate. Minister of TEATT, the Honorable Minister Cornelius de Weever, was briefly…
GREAT BAY — The University of St. Martin will be the hub of a series of Cyber Security Trainings courtesy of a strategic partnership between the University, the Caribbean Israel Ventures Inc. (CIVI) and the facilitators of the course, the Mer Group from Isreal. The Mer Group is one of the world’s leading and groundbreaking cyber security and intelligence companies. It continues to innovate technology and develop training that has become a world standard in cyber security. It has become a publicly traded company since 1992 and is headquartered in Israel. It has 1,200 employees and has 24 global offices.…
Philipsburg — On Tuesday morning, January 23rd, at approximately 10.25 a.m., the first of several calls came in to the Emergency Dispatch about a fire which had broken out in the warehouse complex at Jobco Plaza and Kam’s Distributors. Both businesses are located next to each other. Immediately several police patrols and Fire Department were directed to the scene to investigate the situation. On the scene the emergency services noticed that a fire had broken out at Jobco Plaza and spread into Kam’s Distributors. The investigating officers learnt that the fire started while welding-repairs were being done, by a contractor,…
