PHILIPSBURG — Dr. Jurenne D. Hooi has been appointed as the successor of Nico Schoof as the chair of St. Maarten’s Progress Committee. Schoof and committee member Michel Marijnen both stepped down. Marijke van Veen replaces Marijnen. The other members of the committee are Franklyn Richards, secretary Gert-Jan Stortelers and St. Maarten-based adjunct secretary Terrance Rey. Jurenne Hooi was born in Curacao; she moved to the Netherlands at the age of 19, where she obtained a degree and her PhD in health science from Maastricht University before building a career as an independent advisor and keynote speaker. Hooi describes herself…
Author: The Publisher
ORANJESTAD — Almost seventeen years ago, on May 30, 2005, Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared without a trace during a stay on Aruba. Her body was never found and the authorities have never been able to pin her disappearance and most likely murder on their prime suspect, Joran van der Sloot, who is currently serving a very long prison sentence in Peru for the murder of student Stephany Flores Ramirez in 2010, in Lima. But Holloway made headlines again this week after the Aruban public prosecutor’s office issued a statement about a revival of the investigation into her disappearance. Unfortunately,…
PHILIPSBURG — That the country’s financial management leaves a lot to be desired is no secret. Cft-chairman Raymond Gradus underlines in a letter dated January 31 to St. Maarten’s Minister of Finance Ardwell Irion once more how bad the situation really is. These are the highlights: in 2014 St. Maarten had 74 million guilders ($41.3 million) equity, but in 2020 there was a negative equity of 294 million guilders ($164.2 million). Solvency decreased from 15 percent positive in 2014 to 38 percent negative in 2020. The Cft considers this “extremely worrisome.” Gradus writes that the country will have to compensate…
~ “We have been searching for complicated solutions, when there are simple and realistic solutions to be found.” ~ Dear Editor, Reading, listening, analyzing, researching, evaluating, and continuously proposing ways to settle this matter regarding all monuments on Dutch Sint Maarten, known or unknown, recognized or not, registered or unregistered, are definitely not the Approach that will bring about a Permanent Solution that would involve the cooperation of all segments of our Country, as well as All Parties involved. Be it property owners, government, monuments protection & preservation organizations, or even new purchasers of properties and developers, the simple solution…
~ Bank hailed for its great strides in offering digital banking, e-products and services ~ Bridgetown, Barbados, 31 January 2023. CIBC FirstCaribbean has copped another prestigious award for the great strides the regional bank has made in the digital banking space. In naming the bank “Best Digital Transformation Bank 2022”, The European, a London based global financial publication, said the decision was based on the “bank’s efforts and strides made in digital banking, e-products, internet banking services, and the corporate banking products and made based on a set of global standards as well as the opinion of a select panel of reputable analysts.”…
By Hilbert Haar Als het kalf verdronken is dempt men de put. That Dutch expression aptly describes the belated anger of parliamentarians about the destruction of the historical ruins at Diamond Estate. I am not contesting the historical value of these ruins: they have been there forever, serving as a silent symbol for the fight against slavery. That St. Maarten would like to protect such symbols for the current and future generations does not need further explanation. Parliamentarians went out of their way asking how it is possible that somebody destroyed the site under the cover of darkness. Also understandable.…
PHILIPSBURG — The destruction of the historical ruins at Diamond Estate triggered a request for an urgent meeting of parliament. The meeting took place last Friday. MPs posed many questions but they did not receive any answers yet. The meeting was adjourned to give ministers Egbert Doran (Public Housing, Urban Planning, Environment and Infrastructure) and Rodolphe Samuel (Education, Culture, Youth and Sports) the time to prepare those answers. Parliamentarians bemoaned the destruction of the ruins and asked the ministers about their plans to prevent similar events from happening again in the future. MP Rolando Brison (United People’s party) went beyond…
PHILIPSBURG – StMaartenNews.com obtained a copy of a recent Chamber of Commerce extract of the UP party with the registration of a new executive board on December 14, 2022. “It looks like the party has been ‘high-jacked’,” we observed. According to our information the last UP party congress was held in 2019. We wondered if Theo Heyliger as the party’s founder was made aware of this change. According to the articles of incorporation in the possession of StMaartenNews.com, the UP party’s Governing Board still consists of Theo Heyliger (president), Brenda Wathey (secretary) and Franklin Meyers (treasurer). The Executive Board has…
THE HAGUE – The Kingdom Council of Ministers has asked St. Maarten to establish the 2023 budget by March 31 and to make sure that it meets the requirements from the kingdom law financial supervision. This means that the budget must be balanced. State Secretary Alexandra van Huffelen writes in a letter to the Dutch parliament, dated January 27, that the kingdom has withdrawn the salary cuts that were a condition for receiving liquidity support. These conditions were put in place on May 15, 2020: a 12.5 percent cut in the labor conditions for workers in the (semi) public sector…
By Terrance Rey Never a dull day in St. Maarten. Or weekend. Everyone woke up this morning to the news that District 721 was on fire. My whatsapp inbox was alit with photos and videos – even drone footage – of the blazing fire. My heart immediately went out to the people living in the apartments next door. Other messages were also filling up my inbox. Some with some interesting claims. Some claims were based on how extreme the fire blazed, indicating hints of possible arson. However, one set of claims that the fire truck arrived an hour late and…
