St. Maarten is not real place; akin to St. Tosia

The situation on St. Maarten regarding the ongoing energy crisis with NV GEBE, the island’s utility company, highlights severe challenges that are affecting daily life on the island. The power outages, blackouts, and load shedding have caused significant disruptions, as outlined by the Acting Prime Minister and Acting Minister of VROMI, Veronica Jansen-Webster.

See: Acting Prime Minister and Acting Minister of VROMI Veronica Jansen-Webster on the GEBE Energy Crisis

In an interesting juxtaposition, the fictitious island of St. Tosia is used as a metaphor to illustrate the dysfunctional approach to crisis management that can be seen in St. Maarten. St. Tosia is described as a political adhocracy, where planning is minimal, and actions are only taken in response to immediate crises, often motivated by financial transactions or social events like parties. This fictional narrative satirically reflects the real issues in St. Maarten, where the lack of long-term planning and systemic management has led to repeated energy crises.

Here is A Summary of St. Maarten’s Current Energy Crisis

Crisis Development:
– Engine Failures: The crisis began with the failure of Engine 19 on May 5th, followed by a fire in the auxiliary boiler of Engine 9, affecting Engines 8 and 9.
– Power Plant Blackout: A complete blackout occurred at 4:01 PM, severely impacting the electrical grid with a loss of 15 MW of production capacity.
– Load Shedding: With a peak demand of 57 MW and only seven operational engines, load shedding has been implemented, leading to temporary and rotating power outages across the island.

Government Response:
– Emergency Meeting: An emergency meeting was held to assess the situation and explore immediate remedial actions. Assistance from Curacao and Aruba is being coordinated.
– Community Support: Citizens are urged to share resources, particularly generators, to help preserve essential medications and baby supplies.

Public Notices:
– Load Shedding Schedules: NV GEBE has been updating the public about the load-shedding schedules and apologizing for any inconvenience caused by late postings and prolonged outages.

Reflection from St. Tosia, the island Columbus forgot
St Maarten is in disarray because of the GEBE energy problems. Which is actually a positive thing. Because this brings things to the point that action will be taken to solve a problem that evolved from ignorance.

St. Tosia is a political adhocracy. The philosophy is typified by aversion to planning, tendency to respond only to the urgent, as opposed to the important, focus is on ‘fire fighting,’ rather than on establishing systems, and procedures through goal setting and long term planning. The St. Tosian Adhocracy is flexible and nothing gets done in the first place unless it absolutely urgent, and then it will be done on of the spur of a moment related to either a somewhat obscure financial transaction a disaster or…. a festivity. St. Tosians love parties and the incentive of having a party can be very motivating to take quick and positive decisions.

Source: https://sainttosia.wordpress.com

Conclusions
St. Tosia serves as a critical lens, pointing out the dangers of reactive governance and the lack of proactive planning. The fictional island’s philosophy of dealing with issues only when they become urgent resonates with the current energy management approach in St. Maarten. This allegory emphasizes the need for structured and forward-thinking strategies to prevent such crises in the future.

By drawing these comparisons, the narrative suggests that St. Maarten must move beyond the adhocratic tendencies illustrated by St. Tosia and adopt more robust, long-term solutions to manage its energy needs effectively and sustainably.

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