GREAT BAY – For the third time in four years, Princess Heights Luxury Boutique Hotel has been named “Leading Hotel in St. Maarten”, by the World Travel Awards (WTA) in its 2016 Caribbean & North America Gala Ceremony, during a glittering event held at the Sandals Ochi Beach Resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. This is the third time in the last for years that Princess Heights is awarded with this international recognition. Heralded by The Wall Street Journal as the “Oscar’s of the travel industry,” the WTA has developed into the most prestigious and comprehensive awards program in travel and tourism…
Author: The Publisher
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SZV-Director Glen Carty (left) shakes hands with Minister Emil Lee after signing the performance contract. Photo contributed GREAT BAY – Minister Emil Lee (Public Health, Social Development and Labor) and SZV Director Glen Carty have signed the first ever performance agreement since the founding of the Social & Health Insurances SZV after 10-10-10. This performance agreement is a legal obligation and is directly tied to the operational budget of the SZV, which Director Carty submitted by the yearly legal deadline, which was also a first. Key elements of the performance agreement call for an enhanced digital medical referral process, benchmarked…
DP candidate Perry Geerlings says: “St. Maarten is run like a grocery store.” Photo Today / Hilbert Haar GREAT BAY – A man who speaks his mind and, he says, is considered a traitor because of it by some, is Democratic Party candidate number 4 Perry Geerlings, currently the director of the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary in The Hague. He knows the corridors of political power in the Netherlands but he is equally well-informed about what is happening in St. Maarten. Most logical question: why would someone with a comfortable and steady job in The Hague want to get…
The old and the new government administration building captured in one shot. In the foreground is the old building at Clem Labega Square with the post office to the left. In the heart of the picture is the new building that will welcome its first tenants today, with the TelEm building to the left. Photo Today / Milton Pieters
With just one more weekend to ponder which candidate to vote for when the polling stations open on Monday morning at 8 a.m., tensions are rising. This is apparent from the senseless attack on a gathering of the Christina Party in Belvedere on Wednesday evening. There is no doubt that the country stands on the brink of significant changes. More parties than ever are contesting the elections, there are more candidates than ever to choose from. The question is: what do they really offer? What is different this time around? We have noticed that parties are not that caustic in…
The SMCU delivered a resolution to the prime minister dated August 24, 2016 requesting the reopening of the application for the CEO position of Telem. We also requested for him to appoint the required new members on the board of directors. The reason that there is a need for the new board members is because the articles of incorporation indicate that the board must consist of a maximum seven or a minimum five members, whereas currently there are three members on the board. The prime minister publicized on September 22, 2016 that three new board member would be added to…
Everyone is free to have an opinion about prostitution, but the way the bureaucracy is stifling the private businesses in this sector is simply unacceptable. It feels a bit like struggling through the stifling bureaucracy in Greece, where there is hardly a civil servant sitting behind a desk who really know what he is doing. Here, we see that the club owners are thwarted every step of the way with new requirements, until they see no other way than writing desperate letters to the government and the Ombudsman and – as a measure of last resort, to take the government…
GREAT BAY – Port St. Maarten Management and Supervisory Board representatives were informed about new trends in the cruise industry at Seatrade Cruise Med on Wednesday in Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. Carnival Cruise Corporation will be adding four XL LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) powered cruise ships to its fleet. In the meantime, Carnival will add 10 new ships to its fleet by 2018, and an additional nine new ships will be added to its fleet between 2019 up to 2022. Port St. Maarten is represented at the conference by CEO Mark Mingo, Supervisory Board Member Jason Rogers, General…
GREAT BAY – The White and Yellow Cross Care Foundation broke ground on Thursday September 22 to start the much anticipated construction of its new Elderly Care Homes. Plans for expansion started already in 2014, when a growing waiting list showed the urge for more capacity. Currently 21 seniors reside in the Sint Martin’s Home, which they share with 44 Nursing Home Clients. They will move to the new homes in late 2017. These homes will consist of 3 buildings, with 10 fully equipped studio’s each, catering to at least 30 clients. Each studio has a living room, bedroom and…
GREAT BAY – Telecom providers TelEm and UTS Eastern Caribbean are in talks that should lead to a merger whereby TelEm will hold 60 and UTS 40 percent of the shares, Prime Minister William Marlin said during yesterday’s Council of Ministers press briefing. With his announcement, Marlin addressed concerns expressed by the St. Maarten Communication Union SMCU about the pending sale of TelEm. “I stopped the process of the sale, I pulled up the handbrakes on that one,” Marlin said. “The decision to look for a strategic partner was taken years ago and government needed to revisit that decision.” With…
