PHILIPSBURG — With reference to the article that appeared in the stmaartennews.com online newspaper edition of December 11, 2017, concerning the land dispute between real estate developer Smart Homes and senior citizen, Ms. Fernett Payne, the Ombudsman herewith cares to clarify the following. It should be noted that the mandate of the Ombudsman is limited to complaints filed by citizens against government bodies. As such the Ombudsman would not be competent to investigate the complaint mentioned in the aforementioned article. If Ms. Payne brought her complaint to the Ombudsman earlier this year regarding her predicament, the Ombudsman would have directed…
Author: The Publisher
MARIGOT – At the orders of President Daniel Gibbs, the Collectivité of Saint Martin proceeded last week with the removal of the most embarrassing car wrecks from public roads. Since the passing of Hurricane Irma on September 6, already 500 car wrecks have been removed and treated at the VHU-center for the clean up of cars that are no longer operational. The department for sustainable development will continue with the clean up of car wrecks in the coming weeks. Insurance companies pay for the removal of car wrecks that had an all-risk insurance. There is a list of 1,500 car…
MARIGOT – The Collectivité of Saint Martin is in the process of cleaning up the twelve emergency dump sites it established after the passing of Hurricane Irma for storage of debris like zinc sheets, wood and other materials. The temporary dump sites in French Quarter, Cul de Sac and La Savane have been completely cleaned up, while those in Mont Vernon, Concordia, Sandy Ground and Galis Bay are in the process of being cleaned up. Truckers have made more than 300 trips to the eco-site of Grandes Cayes with the debris. The Collectivité expects that the cleanup operation will be…
PHILIPSBURG – “What is the big secret? That memorandum of understanding should not be confidential,” said an exasperated UP-MP Tamara Leonard on Tuesday morning during the continued central committee meeting about the dire situation at the university of St. Martin. But Leonard’s request for details about the memorandum fell on deaf ears with Valerie Giterson-Pantophlet, the chair of the USM-board. “We will adhere to the meeting of November 29.” she said, referring to a meeting with Minister Silveria Jacobs (Education) where the memorandum was presented and where parties agreed to keep its contents confidential. Minister Jacobs said at a press…
By Hilbert Haar What you read right here is protected by copyright laws. You are not allowed to take it off the internet and use it for another publication without my permission and without paying me for it. It’s a simple rule that is badly understood by the good people at Ultimo Noticia, a Curacao-based newspaper that made a habit of stealing photos made by Dick Drayer, an independent journalist based in Curacao who operates Press Agency Curacao and is maybe best known as the correspondent for the NOS in the Netherlands. Drayer talked to Ultimo Noticia about their bad…
MARIGOT – The French Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud will visit Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin between from Thursday, December 14 until Monday, December 18, senator Guillaume Arnell announced. The minister will focus during her visit to the three islands on vocational training and labor issues. Senator Arnell is unable to accompany Pénicaud during her visit to Saint Martin, because he has business to attend to in the senate in Paris. Arnell did meet however with the minister before her departure and discussed the specific problems that are haunting Saint Martin after the passing of Hurricane Irma. Arnell has also…
By Emilio Kalmera The news in the last week of November about the court striking the licence fee for Travel Planners must have been an interesting state of affairs for the community. In a ruling which may have big consequences for the banking and financial sectors, the Court of First Instance decided that Windward Islands Bank (WIB) N.V. is no longer allowed to charge a one-percent licence fee over international transactions on behalf of Wise Travel Bureau N.V., the holding company of Travel Planners travel agency. When reading the preliminary verdict details, there was part that stated “De Centrale Bank…
PHILIPSBURG – In May of this year Fernett Payne called in the help of the now defunct Today newspaper to report about a dispute with real estate developer Smart Homes. The developer broke Payne’s fence, put rocks on her property in Defiance and refused to do anything about it when she complained. Now Payne has sought legal counsel to settle the matter. The report in Today triggered an angry phone call from Smart Homes director Henry Lynch, the ousted director of the St. Maarten Housing Development Foundation who growled why the paper had the nerve to publish about the situation,…
PHILIPSBURG – The anti-corruption task force (TBO) arrested Corrine de T. on Sunday on suspicion of money laundering, not reporting unusual transactions, operating a trust office without a permit and destruction of evidence. De T. is the former co-owner of the Standard Trust Company that played a role in the investigation against former head of immigration Marcel Loor in 2007. De T., 54, was arrested in the course of an ongoing investigation into fraud with construction projects. In December 2010, the Court in First Instance sentenced the Standard Trust Company and its three directors – Corinne de Tullio-Stamm, Allard Stamm…
PHILIPSBURG – The government will run out of money by the end of this month. This appears from a letter Cft-chairman Raymond Gradus sent to Finance Minister Richard Gibson about the proposal to amend the 2017 budget. Revenue for the year will drop by 126.7 million guilders to 351.4 million, while expenditures will increase by 38.1 million to 496.2 million. This will result in a deficit of 144.8 million guilders. St. Maarten had indicated to the Cft that liquid assets will be completely exhausted by the end of the year. The financial supervisor notes in its letter that not all…
