Author: The Publisher

GREAT BAY – “I promised some months ago in parliament not to raise the taxes on car license plates,” Minister of Finance Richard Gibson said yesterday. Based on legislation that has been put in place an agreement was made with the receiver to go after casino fees. “The receiver collected 2 million guilders in arrears,” the minister said. In October the receiver will collect another 650,000 and from there on every month 195,000. The minister noted that the documentation for the legislation that makes the collection of these fees possible disappeared three times. “I was relentless,” he said about his…

GREAT BAY – Finance Minister Richard Gibson struck back at United St. Maarten party-leader Frans Richardson at yesterday’s Council of Ministers press briefing. Richardson said last week that Prime Minister William Marlin should “put to bed and shut up” Gibson, adding that the finance minister is “too old and that it is time for him to go home.” “People out there say that I am too old and that I should be put to bed,” Gibson said in a reaction yesterday without mentioning Richardson’s name. “Well, I want to apologize to all senior citizens in St. Maarten because the persons…

King Willem-Alexander’s third Troonrede King Willem-Alexander, with Queen Maxima by his side, pronounces the Troonrede. Photo contributed THE HAGUE – The Caribbean part of the kingdom remains the poor cousin in the annual speech of King Willem-Alexander at the opening of the parliamentary year in the Netherlands. Last year, the so-called Troonrede contained one line: “Together with the Caribbean part of the Kingdom the Netherlands keeps working on a good future.” This year, the reference to the islands was summed up as follows: “In close cooperation with the Caribbean parts of the kingdom the government conducted a successful campaign for…

Justice Ministry does not pay GREAT BAY – The strike of on-call attorneys, initiated by attorney Geert Hatzmann two weeks ago, has widened. Currently eleven attorneys are on strike. They only serve paying clients and do not handle cases of defendants who have to rely on the state for legal assistance because they cannot afford an attorney. “Up to this moment the minister of justice (or one of his associates) has not been in touch,” Cor Merx, the chairman of the section criminal justice of the Bar Association, states in a press release. “The minister of finance has also put…

GREAT BAY – The Prosecutor’s Office has lodged an appeal against the four verdicts of the Court of First Instance of St. Maarten in the Masbangu investigation. The investigation focuses on vote fraud during the Parliamentary elections in 2010. The suspects R.C.H.J., C.C. and A.R.W are suspected of selling their votes and R. H. is suspected of buying the votes of the other three suspects for the United People’s party. Last week Wednesday the Court in First Instance acquitted the four suspects of all charges of (attempted) vote buying. According to the court it has been established that payments have…

The strike of by now eleven pro bono attorneys shows that not everything is fine and dandy at the justice ministry. There is an apparent budget problem – suggesting that the minister has run out of money, but keen observers wonder how this could be. There is reportedly $1.3 million in the crime fund – money that the minister can spend at his discretion in the fight against crime. Question: where is that money? And it is not like the attorneys showed up out of nowhere to become an unexpected burden to the minister’s budget. The concern about this situation…

On St. Maarten, the beach party is loud. You’ve seen the photos of airliners casting shadows over the heads of beachgoers. You’ve watched the YouTube videos of people getting blasted by the jet exhaust. You have either shaken your head in disbelief or longed to be there yourself. I have done both and now I can say: There is no way to understand the phenomenon of St. Maarten’s Maho Beach without experiencing it. Earlier this year, I finally made the pilgrimage to St. Maarten, home to Princess Juliana International Airport and its famous surfside approach. An activity once on the…

SMMC signs contract with developer Inso GREAT BAY – Hospital-Director Kees Klarenbeek expressed his confidence in the construction of the new hospital on Monday during the signing of the design-build-maintain contract with the Italian contractor Inso. Today reported yesterday a picture on its front page about the signing, but the information came in too late to publish the accompanying story. “Today we reach an important milestone on the assay to a new hospital for St. Maarten,” SMMC-Director Klarenbeek said in a brief address. He emphasized that the bids for the project had been assesses and scrutinized by a team of…

Strong objections to construction plans GREAT BAY – Last week’s report that the Blue Mall in Cupecoy is about to be converted into a Marriott Hotel got a different twist from a letter the Blue Residence Homeowners Association sent to the mall’s manager José Vicente Melo. This newspaper obtained a copy of the letter that speaks about the construction of additional residential units, not about a hotel. The homeowners write that the Venezuelan group that runs the mall, Fondo de Valores Immibiliaros – “is contemplating or currently constructing additional residential and/or hotel accommodations on the fourth and fifth floors of…

One of the most popular expressions used by politicians is ‘moving the country forward.’ It seldom means anything, but yesterday there was another step in the right direction with the signing of the contract for the construction of the new hospital with the Italian developer Inso. This project seems to have passed the point of no return and rather than making attempts to frustrate the progress of this project politicians should now stand back and let the construction begin without creating any unnecessary stumbling blocks – before or after the elections. After all, the people in our community have been…