GREAT BAY – Pro bono attorneys Geert Hatzmann, Sjamira Roseburg and Shaira Bommel reached an agreement with Justice Minister Rafael Boasman yesterday afternoon about their outstanding invoices. Earlier this week, Hatzmann announced a possible strike if the invoices would not be paid by tomorrow. “The minister has indicated that he and his colleague of the Ministry of Finance, Richard Gibson, will make sure that all outstanding payments will be made within a week and at most within two weeks,” Hatzmann said in a statement. “In the future all invoices will be paid within a month when there are no calamities.”…
Author: The Publisher
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There is no doubt that the government got the message about the dump: it was the prime topic at the Council of Ministers press briefing. Minister Christophe Emmanuel made a couple of statements yesterday that may come to haunt him. Soon there will be no more fires on the dump and – even better – dumping garbage on the landfill will soon be a thing of the past too, he said. These are surely bold statements but the question will come up sooner or later how realistic they are. The definition of the term soon is of course open for…
GREAT BAY – The dump on Pond Island took center stage during yesterday’s Council of Ministers press briefing. Minister Christophe Emmanuel emphasized that the dump is a priority. “We are working on it,’ he said. At the same time, the minister said that he will not come with a comment every time the dump is on fire. “That is because next week the dump will be on fire again, and the week after as well. Right now you will see pockets of smoke on the dump. People, there is no time that the dump is not on fire,” Emmanuel said.…
GREAT BAY – Minister Rafael Boasman (Justice) said yesterday that the Progress Committee has given him the time to implement his plan for the Pointe Blanche prison. The minister said that the plan of approach for the police is progressing well. “In a few months I expect to have met all the requirements. The prison is a different story though.” Boasman said that he intends to bring Pointe Blanche up to international standards: “But that is not something we can do in a month or two.” The prison does not have a staff shortage, the minister pointed out, but a…
GREAT BAY – “I know my son. If you told me he got into an argument with the police I would believe you. If you told me he got into a fight I would believe you. But my son would never rob a supermarket,” the distraught mother of Edwin Eventon Anselmo Bruney told this newspaper yesterday. The Common Court of Justice sentenced 23-year-old Bruney last week to 48 months of imprisonment for the January 5, 2016 armed robbery at the Dessam Supermarket in St. Peters, for the possession of a pellet gun and for the ill-treatment of two of his…
Dear Editor, It is nine in the morning and a purple dawn is rising with difficulty in the east while a strong ice-wind is blowing over the cold North Sea to the west. It is February 2008 and I am standing with fifty of my fellow Master students at the Volgermeer Polder, a former toxic waste dump for the city of Amsterdam. In front of us two million square meters of garbage and dangerous chemicals are being transformed into a natural reserve by engineers contracted by the city of Amsterdam. My professor, Dr. Joyeeta Gupta –a Nobel Prize Laureate- lectures…
The first annual report of the Electoral Council shows that political parties still have a lot to learn. Not only do they lack knowledge about the very ordinance that regulates their existence, they also show a blatant lack of interest in learning about it. Every country obviously gets the politicians it deserves, and there is no power on earth that could make politicians do something – like learning something new – that they prefer to ignore. We also learn that, while all parties are now associations, they do not all abide by their own articles of association. That weakness will…
GREAT BAY – Most parties and politicians hardly have accurate knowledge of the contents of the national ordinance on registration and finances of political parties and the role of the Electoral Council. This is one of the observations in the 2014 annual report the Electoral Council released yesterday. Donors gave parties and candidates more than one million guilders for the 2014 elections, the report reveals. Annual report Electoral Council “Despite this lack of knowledge (about the ordinance – ed.), only a small number of parties and candidates visited the Electoral Council for information,” the report states. The council furthermore notes…
It seems now that Education Minister Silveria Jacobs has no interest whatsoever in settling her differences with the American University of Integrated Sciences. What was supposed to be a simple name change has turned into an ugly standoff that does not benefit anybody – not the university, and not the community either. In case of a dispute – whatever it may be – the least parties could do is have a face to face talk and explain their positions. Since August 2016, the university has attempted to meet with the minister – all to no avail. It has brought the…
GREAT BAY – The National Alliance, the United St. Maarten party and the Democratic Party present themselves in the governing program for the 2016-2020 period as the United Democratic Alliance – an umbrella that magically contains parts of the names of all three parties. The governing program runs 102 pages and contains, if we counted correctly 130 initiatives – one for every eleven days of the four-year governing period. “This government emphasizes the importance of sound financial management and a balanced budget. We will therefore selectively and responsibly stimulate and diversify our economy to generate the needed revenues to meet…
