Budget 2020: personnel costs keep going up
PHILIPSBURG – The draft 2020 budget understandably shows significantly higher expenditures due to the COVID-19 crisis, but it seems that the government is unable to get a grip on its ballooning personnel costs while the overview of subsidies contains contributions to events that did not even take place, such as the annual carnival. Personnel costs More...
Salaries for ministers unchanged in 2020 draft budget
PHILIPSBURG – The draft 2020 budget does not contain any indication that ministers and parliamentarians will take a ten percent salary cut. On the contrary, the listed salaries for all ministers – with the More...
Draft 2020 budget meets with criticism
PHILIPSBURG – The draft 2020 budget closes with a deficit of 263.2 million guilders ($147 million). Expenditures total 610.5 million and revenue 347.3 million. The Council of Advice is critical of the budget: More...
MP Mercelina tackles national health insurance plan again
PHILIPSBURG – MP Luc Mercelina (United Democrats) repeated his objections against the introduction of a National Health Insurance (NHI) plan during the handling of the draft 2019 budget in parliament on Monday. More...
Websites for dummies (UPDATED)
By Hilbert Haar Technology is wonderful. I can be anywhere in the world, watch what is happening anywhere else and write about it. Organizations – like the parliament and the government of St. Maarten – use More...
Minister Geerlings criticizes Dutch interference
PHILIPSBURG - Finance Minister Perry Geerlings criticized the Kingdom for interfering in St. Maarten’s affairs by attaching conditions to the provision of badly needed liquidity support but at the same time he More...
There is a hole in the budget
POND ISLAND — The draft 2019 budget closes with a deficit of 67.2 million guilders. The government projects 478.8 million in expenditures this year and 411.6 million guilders in revenue. The tax office project More...