By Hilbert Haar People in Curacao were surprised by the offer of Hushang Ansary’s attorney to abide by a ruling from the Court in First Instance from November 2021. I was not surprised. I was stunned, because said ruling sentenced Ansary and a few others to pay insurance company Ennia more than a billion guilders (around $583 million). The appeal against that ruling is scheduled to take place later this month. See related article: Ansary announces he is ready to abide by billion-dollar court ruling So what game is Ansary playing this time? Buying time? That is one thought that…
Author: The Publisher
WILLEMSTAD — Parman international BV and its majority shareholder Hushang Ansary want to put a stop to the lawsuit brought against them by the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten. In a letter addressed to the Central Bank’s executive director José Jardim and board member Elisbeth Grimm, dated March 1, Parman’s attorney Mirto Murray writes that Parman has “a strong desire” to bring all legal proceedings to an end and that the company has authorized him “to declare its readiness to fully comply with the ruling of the Court in First Instance of November 29, 2021, on behalf of…
SIMPSON BAY – Following an acceptance handing over in Austria from March 6 through 9, 2023, the Airport’s Rescue and Firefighters (R&FF) will acquire two (2) new fire trucks for emergency response at the aerodrome of the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA). The safety vehicles are part of Management’s strategic plan to further enhance its operations. At present, PJIA has two (2) trucks, which served a lifespan of fifteen (15) years. “The Rosenbauer Panther 6×6 is the fire truck of the future,” disclosed Manilo Penijn, Airport Chief of the Rescue and Firefighters. “Built from the ground up using the most advanced technologies,…
Dear Editor, Having discussed this in the past and considering that this topic has been broached by a couple of other persons in the public domain, I would like to again bring this topic of matter up. It is the issue of the high-profit tax on our island. What is profit tax or corporate tax? A corporate tax is a total tax applied to the net profits of a company i.e. gross profits less expenses, depreciation, operation costs, and other costs. The global average corporate tax rate is 23.64% as per Investopedia. St. Maarten (Dutch) has a rate of 34.5%.…
Dear Editor, With the elections slated to be at the end of this year, we’ve already seen several parties and persons pop out of the woodworks in an effort to convince you, the reading, voting populous, to vote for them. I strongly encourage those that truly want change for the better for St. Maarten to jump into the arena, as with the current political climate one thing is clear, we need change. However, we must be wary of falling in the same pitfalls as we’ve done in the past. We need a way to effectively separate the wheat from the…
~ DIRECT FLIGHT FROM QATAR AIRWAYS SHOWS DEMAND FOR ULTRA-LUXURY AIR SERVICE IN OUR REGION ~ SIMPSON BAY — The ultra-luxury carrier Qatar Airways performed a “Spectacular landing” at the Princess Juliana International Airport on Friday, February 17, 2023. The long-haul carrier served a direct chartered private flight and is known to have the longest range of the A340-family. The state-owned flag carrier airline of Qatar is Qatar Airways. The Airbus A340-500 is also a four-engine wide-body airliner with a maximum capacity of 375 passengers. Director of Operations, Emile Levons – “The airline travels to over 150 destinations throughout Africa, Asia,…
~ PUBLIC OUTREACH CAMPAIGN CONTINUES WITH CONSTRUCTION SITE TOUR FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS OF ST. MAARTEN ~ SIMPSON BAY — Four (4) parliamentarians graciously accepted an invitation to tour the construction site of the Airport Terminal Reconstruction Project at the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) on Friday, February 17, 2023. The tour served as an integral component of the Public Outreach Campaign by the PJIA Corporate Communication and Project Management Unit (PMU), to offer the necessary stakeholder’s engagement by way of information disclosure. Readily available to take the invited tour were President of Parliament, MP Cookie Bijlani, MP Angelique Roumou, MP George…
~ KLM flight KL730 officially cancelled; aircraft at parking ramp to undergo inspection ~ PHILIPSBURG — KLM Airbus A322 with tailnumber PH-OAF executing KL flight 730 to Amsterdam is stuck on the runway at SXM Airport with little chance of taking off again tonight, as per the indications of the aircraft captain to airport air traffic control (ATC).This afternoon at exactly 3:26pm, KLM flight 729 touched down on the SXM Airport runway. While taxing to the end of the runway and making the turn to taxi back to the ramp, the aircraft came to a sudden stop with a lurch.…
SIMPSON BAY — On Sunday, February 26, 2023, confirmed reports from the PJIAE Airport Operations Tower declared that KLM Airbus Flight 729, with aircraft type (A-330-203), encountered a nose wheel steering system malfunction upon landing. The aircraft landed at SXM Airport at approximately 3:26 PM. KLM Flight 729 was later grounded at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA). The passenger manifest declared a total of 225 passengers and 11 crew members on board from the Royal Schiphol Airport with a destination to St. Maarten. All were reportedly safe upon landing. The Airport’s Operations reported on the scene at 3:29 PM, meanwhile,…
By Hilbert Haar I have more than once expressed my amazement about the huge number of tax warrants our tax inspectorate issues on a regular basis. Hundreds of them and they all have one characteristic in common: current residence unknown. So the tax inspectorate knows that it does not know where a certain tax payer is hanging out, but it still insists on issuing tax warrants that contain the order to comply with its contents within two days. Maybe you wonder how often the people and businesses that are on the receiving end of these warrants step up to the…
