Websites for dummies
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 these wonders of technology to communicate with their citizens. At least – I figure that was the idea when they spent money on web sites. But More...
No sense of urgency
By Hilbert Haar Membership of parliament is supposed to be a full time job and our fifteen parliamentarians are handsomely paid for it. Yet, according to a proposal submitted by MPs Rolando Brison, Christophe Emmanuel More...
Truth and politics
By Hilbert Haar There is truth and then there is politics. Never did this become clearer than from the dogfight that erupted after young MP Rolando Brison trained his guns on former Finance Minister Mike Ferrier More...
Pension reform: impossible is nothing
By Hilbert Haar The stalled debate about increasing the retirement age has put the spotlight on questions about ageing and the ability to continue working after the current retirement age of 62 in St. Maarten. LOGIN More...
Hidden agenda
By Hilbert Haar Last week I witnessed something odd. The parliamentary committee for Public Housing, Urban Planning, Environment and Infrastructure – commonly referred to as the VROMI-committee (PHUPEI doesn’t More...
The wrong message
By Hilbert Haar Think about this a bit. The court in Philipsburg decided against sending the suspects in the Pompeii-investigation to prison because, according to local reports, “the insufficient condition of More...
Follow the money
By Hilbert Haar Was it a serious collective Carnival hangover or a deliberate attempt to sabotage the government’s attempts to put legislation in place that regulates the cross-border transport of money and valuables? More...
Between a rock and a hard place, but worse
By Hilbert Haar The expression caught between a rock and a hard place does not begin to describe the situation St. Maarten finds itself in now that the Kingdom Council of Ministers has put conditions in place for More...
When Parliaments speak ….
By Hilbert Haar When parliaments speak, governments have to listen. Those iconic words came from Jeroen Recourt, leader of the Dutch delegation after a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Kingdom Consultation (Ipko) More...
A questionable future
By Hilbert Haar The story that I am hearing now is that suspended MP Theo Heyliger is done with politics. It tallies with a statement he made to me earlier last year when he wrote me a message saying that the 2018 More...
