PHILIPSBURG — The company culture at utilities company GEBE is unhealthy due to a lack of communication between management and employees, the Integrity Chamber concludes after investigation the situation at GEBE. The Chamber also found that political influence negatively influences the composition of GEBE’s supervisory and management board. Related article: Integrity Chamber Completes Investigation into N.V. GEBE The Chamber advises to prevent political influence by creating and publicizing profiles for the managing and supervisory board members based on the required background and experience and by ensuring a transparent and accountable process and selection of candidates. The investigation covered the years…
Author: The Publisher
Dear Editor, NOW, just some months ago, bounced on to the scene with petite fanfare, as a new political party, offering a minuscule of hope and change for the upcoming elections. Presenting regurgitated outlooks on navigating the course towards opportunities and wealth for the people of our nation, NOW provides citizens yet another political party platform of promises. With a candidate list to fill, supporters to acquire, voters to lock in, contacts to be made and possibly financiers to be gain, NOW became a sitting duck. Filling its candidates’ list, NOW signed off on the acquisition of two defectors from…
THE HAGUE – The Dutch gaming authority KSA has fined online gambling company Betent $3 million ($3.27 million) for violating a string of requirements. Betent operates in The Netherlands under a sub-license from master license holder Antillephone in Curacao. The validity of this license has been repeatedly questioned by Nardy Cramm, the editor of KnipselKrant-Curacao.com, but the KSA-decision about the fine refers to Betent as a company that “holds a license for offering online games of chance.” According to Cramm, the KSA has not reacted to her research into the questionable validity of the license. Antillephone profiles itself as “a…
PHILIPSBURG — The Pointe Blanche prison is not the only facility in the Kingdom’s justice chain that struggles with staff shortages it appears from a letter Minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection) sent to the Dutch Second Chamber. The minister wrote that not all criminals with a verdict to their name can be put in prison immediately. He considers several solutions, like releasing prisoners with a sentence of up to 1 year with an ankle bracelet. Jan Keijser, a representative of the central works council of the DJI (Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen) said that staff is unable to abide by agreements about…
PHILIPSBURG — Artist Deborah Jack took some time out of her busy schedule to speak with StMaartenNews.com about the Open Society Foundations 2023 Soros Arts Fellowship: Art, Land and Public Memory, that came her way. The fellowship comes with a most welcome grant if $100,000 and her project is scheduled to be completed by March 2025. Her award-winning project entitled To Make a Map of My Memory: Wayfinding Along Synaptic Topographies intends to create a new kind of archive. During the next eighteen months, the artist will interview St. Maarteners and use their recordings to create a library of oral…
MARIGOT — The court in Marigot holds Canadian businessman Mario di Palma responsible for the bankruptcy of the French-side construction company Deldevert. The court sentenced him to a 6 months conditional prison sentence, a fine of €10,000 ($11,000) and a ban on practicing any commercial or industrial profession or a management function in Saint Martin for five years. A second defendant in the bankruptcy, identified by the French-side newspaper Le Pelican as A.K. received a fine of €500 ($550) with five years of probation. Di Palma bought Deldevert in December 2017, shortly after the island was devastated by Hurricane Irma.…
Philipsburg, St. Maarten –- November 29, 2023 – The Dutch St. Maarten Taxi Association is pleased to announce the results of its recent executive board elections. The election was held at the John Larmonie Center on Monday, November 27th, 2023, with a strong turnout of 131 voters from the association. Maya Friday, the incumbent President, has been re-elected for another term, receiving an overwhelming majority of the votes. Her continued leadership was widely endorsed, with her candidacy standing unopposed and securing 121 votes, affirming her strong support within the association. The position of Secretary was hotly contested, with four candidates…
PHILIPSBURG — Eight parties will contest the January 11 elections. Together they are fielding 131 candidates of whom 42 also took part in the 2020 elections, bringing the total of new faces in the political arena to 89. In terms of potential voting-power the National Alliance seems to be in the best position to win the contest, though there are a few dark horses in the race that could influence the outcome. Three parties presented on Postulation Day a list with the maximum of 23 candidates: the Democratic Party (DP), the United People’s party (UP) and the National Alliance (NA).…
PHILIPSBURG — The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has published an article about the dispute between ENNIA’s majority shareholder Hushang Ansary and the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten under the title: A US billionaire took over a tropical island pension fund – then hundreds of millions of dollars went missing. Consortium-journalists interviewed Ansary for the article, but he did not give them anything. The journalists found that Ansary set up shell companies with the help of PwC Cyprus and that he oversaw a series of transactions that drained Ennia’s pension fund. The article describes Ansary as a…
PHILIPSBURG — Tomorrow, November 22, the Dutch electorate votes for a new parliament and by extension for a new government. Caribisch Netwerk analyzed the political manifestos of the participating parties and took a closer look at their plans for the Caribbean part of the kingdom. Eleven of the seventeen parties mention the three autonomous countries (Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten) in their programs; ten parties mention Caribbean Netherlands (Saba, Statia and Bonaire) and three parties have nothing to say about the Caribbean part of the kingdom. According to the polls, the parties that are expected to win most of the…
