GREAT BAY – Port St. Maarten has a representative at the 20th Annual General Meeting of the Port Management Association of the Caribbean (PMAC) in the Cayman Islands. The meeting began yesterday and concludes tomorrow. Yesterday, the PMAC opened with an executive committee meeting followed by a strategic session and welcome reception in the evening. Today, opening remarks will be delivered by the chairman followed by internal organizational business matters. Tomorrow there will be a number of technical sessions. Port Management Association of the Caribbean delegates will review the Strategic Plan 2013-2017 and create an upcoming plan as it relates to 21st century continuous…
Author: The Publisher
There are several ways to make a country great and some ways to make sure that this never happens. In that last category fall formalities. This thought crossed our mind when we heard Justice Minister Boasman said yesterday that “formally, the Miss Lalie Center does not exist.” The finer points related to this remark are to be found on our front page today. In the real world, the situation is that we have what former Justice Minister Dennis Richardson liked to call a youth care center. That sounds a tad friendlier than youth detention center – because that’s what it…
Dear Editor, Last week, yet another annual report was added to the long list of reports that Parliament has in its possession. The General Audit Chamber, one of the High Councils of State, submitted for the seventh time, its annual report in both the Dutch and English languages. Hence, Members of Parliament, who are not versed in the Dutch language have no excuse about not being able to read or understand the Chamber’s annual report. I would like to commend the Chamber for producing a very good report. It’s critical, yet objective and minces no words as it lets the…
GREAT BAY – “I have assured the General Audit Chamber that the Ministry of Justice respects its tasks and that under this minister it will fully cooperate,” Justice Minister Rafael Boasman said at yesterday’s Council of Ministers press briefing in reaction to a question from this newspaper about the fierce criticism the Audit Chamber directed in its 2016 annual report at the ministry for a lack of cooperation with its audit of personnel expenditures in 2015. Minister Boasman said that he was “a bit surprised” when he read the front page article in Today (last Monday’s edition: “Justice Ministry undermines…
GREAT BAY – “Our drinking water is safe,” Minister Emil lee assured the population at yesterday’s Council of Ministers press briefing. Late on Tuesday evening Inspector-General Dr. Earl best sent out a press release stating that his department is intensifying the supervision of water producers and distributors after bacteriological test found E. Coli and Legionella bacteria in the drinking water. Minister Lee recapped the statement from the inspectorate yesterday, pointing out that Seven Seas produces the island’s potable water from sea water through a reverse osmosis process at its three water plants in Pointe Blanche, Cay Hill and Cupecoy. Gebe…
Public Health Minister Emil Lee has emphatically made clear that our drinking water is safe. We are confident that this is a true statement. It is also a useful clarification after initial reports about the discovery of unwanted bacteria at several locations in the distribution network. The explanation provided by the inspector-general about the drinking water is also useful. To some, bottled water still may taste better, but based on the statements that are now made public, there is no reason to assume that our drinking water poses a hazard to public health.
Dear Editor, One of the most prominent institutions on the 6 islands of the previous Netherlands Antilles is the Chamber of Commerce & Industry which they have inherited in 1945 from our European mother country the Netherlands. Nowadays the three bigger islands have a Chamber of their own while the smaller three have one for them together. Said Chambers, through their Trade Registers, aide in providing a secure environment for business undertakings on our sister islands. Indeed, by constantly upgrading their organizations to provide the best possible service the Chambers’ Trade Registers are nowadays also used to register other legal…
Simpson Bay, St. Maarten, Customer Service Mobile Academy, CSMA opened its doors on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 with their immersed, highly anticipated partnership with the Holland House. CSMA is a new, affiliate company that falls under the auspices of Training Professionals International Firm, (TPI) the leading training and development firm that has been a trail blazer in providing accredited trainings and professional development services to some of the biggest companies on the island and throughout the Caribbean. On September 4 – 8, 2017CSMA and the Holland House will provide diverse service industry professionals from an array of business sectors with…
GREAT BAY – The Progress Committee is not entirely “cautiously optimistic” in its first quarter report as Justice Minister Rafael Boasman said at Wednesday’s Council of Ministers press briefing. This appears from the report of which this newspaper obtained a copy. “After many months of insisting in vain for action with the government of St. Maarten the movements of the past quarter seems reason to be cautiously optimistic or, if you want, less pessimistic,” the report states about government decisions. The report indeed mentions that the prime minister expressed his support to the Progress Committee for the measures the minister…
The Progress Committee is a tad more critical of St. Maarten than Justice Minister Rafael Boasman wants us to believe. The report calls the government a bad employer and notes that the country has no access to Actpol – a critical tool for immigration and police work. Maybe it is a good sign that the Progress Committee is “less pessimistic” – one could call that a form of optimism of course. But St. Maarten is not there yet, not by a long shot. The good news is that our minister of justice is well aware of this.
