Cdr. Bud Slabbaert floated an interesting concept in a column that describes the benefits of business incubators. Incubators have a strong resemblance with the business centers that were all the rage in the eighties in the Netherlands. It is still a valid concept though: it focuses on creating jobs by building businesses, rather than on teaching job seekers how to find meaningful employment. A brilliant idea is not necessarily the key to building a successful business. Just think about what happened to the innovative electrical bicycle-manufacturer Van Moof in the Netherlands. The idea was good, the execution lousy and the…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — Implementing the justice function book will cost the government more than 40 million guilders ($22.3 million) this year, it appears from a press release issued by the Ministry of Justice. The agreement Minister Anna Richardson reached with the unions is still subject to approval by the Council of Ministers. Minister Richardson negotiated the agreement with the NAPB, ABVO and WICSU/PSU unions and the Committee of Civil Servants Union (CCSU) as well as with management and employees of her ministry. According to the press release, the unions “collaborated closely” with the minister about the final review of the legal…
PHILIPSBURG — Wndward Roads deal with the Public Prosecution in the Larimar corruption case is finally coming to fruition. The Larimar-trial examined the activities of several companies, among them Windward Roads, that paid bribes to offshore entities and that ended up in the pockets of former politicians Theo Heyliger. At the trial, Windward Roads promised to execute $2 million worth of projects on the island to compensate for its wrongdoings. The public prosecutor’s office announced in a recent press release that it has agreed to allow Windward Roads to complete work on the Dutch Quarter sewage pump station and the…
PHILIPSBURG — General Pension Fund APS acquired Mary’s Fancy and the De Castro properties on L.B. Scott Road in 2014 for 4.4 million guilders ($2,458,000) with the intention to develop them for commercial use. Unfortunately, the conditions for further development soon worsened to a point where APS had to put the project on hold. According to the 2020 annual report the original projection was to complete the project by the third quarter of 2022. Renovating the monuments at Mary’s Fancy are part of the project. APS intended (and still intends) to renovate the plantation house, the boiling house, the servants…
WILLEMSTAD — Curacao wants to become a dominant player in the market of renewable energy, NOS-correspondent Dick Drayer reports, but the apparent plans to build windmill parks off the North coast of Curacao quickly met with an avalanche of criticism. What is the plan exactly? A floating park of windmills that produces 5 to 6 gigawatt of electricity by 2035, more than enough to cover Curacao’s daily energy needs of 130 megawatt. The plan is to convert the surplus of energy into hydrogen and to export it in the region or even to the Netherlands. The Dutch research vessel Fugro…
The intention to appoint two full-time directors at the Cadastre next to the managing director that is already in place has raised serious concerns with at least one Member of Parliament, the formidable Grisha Heyliger-Marten (independent). The MP says that these appointments will cut deeply into the Cadastre’s net results. Others, like former director Clemens Roos, offer a different perspective: a financial director who reports directly to the supervisory board is a recipe for disaster. Two captains on one ship is never a good idea. The question nobody has asked so far is why the Cadastre sees the need…
PHILIPSBURG — Independent MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten want Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion to put the recruitment of a full-time Chief Financial Officer and a Chief Operations Officer at the Cadastre on hold. The MP states in a press release that these appointments would put a serious dent in the Cadastre’s net result. On April 3, MP Heyliger-Marten sent a letter to Minister Ardwell via the president of parliament, Siddharth Bijlani, asking for information about the Cadastre based on article 14.2 of the institution’s articles of incorporation. On May 23, parliament received the requested information about the Cadastre’s administration and its…
By Hilbert Haar I have written this more than once but this seems an opportune moment to repeat it: freedom ends where it intrudes upon the freedom of others. Unfortunately, the prime ministers of St. Maarten, Curacao and Aruba seem to have made it their business to intrude upon the freedom of their citizens by refusing to make marriage between partners of the same sex possible. St. Maarten and Curacao don’t even abide by a ruling of the European Human Rights Court that says that countries that prohibit same sex marriages have to offer an alternative like a legally regulated…
PHILIPSBURG — The turnover of Winair more than doubled in 2022 to €28.6 million (almost $31.2 million) compared to the €13.7 million ($14.9 million) of the year before. Profit before taxes was €1.5 million ($1.64 million). This appears from the annual report State Participations 2022 published by the Dutch Ministry of Finance. Because Winair still has negative equity of €2 million ($2.18 million) the company will not pay any dividend to its shareholders. That the airline is doing very well indeed appears from its results in the first quarter of 2023. Turnover increased by 35 percent, the number of flights…
MARIGOT — Former mayor Albert Fleming-Romney passed away at the age of 86 at the hospital in Marigot on Monday due to heart failure. Fleming was Marigot’s mayor for 24 years, from 1983 until 2007. Louis Mussington, the current president of the Collectivité of Saint Martin, offered his condolences in a written statement “with deep sadness and a heavy heart.” “This news has plunged our community in an ocean of sorrow. “He was a child of the land and he had a strong connection with every citizen of Saint Martin, with every family.” Mussington stated that Fleming was more than…
