Kingdom imposes conditions on sixth tranche of liquidity support
PHILIPSBURG — St. Maarten’s capacity is, in terms of quantity and quality “a serious stumbling block” for the execution of improvements, State Secretary Raymond Knops (Kingdom Relations) writes in a letter about continued liquidity support to the Second Chamber. In other words: St. Maarten does not have enough people to work on these improvements and the ones it does have do not meet certain unspecified quality standards.
“For this reason, not all agreed-upon deadlines have been met in the second quarter. Several deadlines from the implementation agenda are ambitious but they appear to be insufficiently realistic.”
Knops reports that several deadlines for the third quarter have been adjusted because of these circumstances.
The government is now facing additional conditions for the reception of the 48 million guilders ($26.8 million) of the sixth tranche of liquidity support, but the kingdom is prepared to pay these funds if certain conditions are met. Knops mentions in his letter the establishment of three plans of approach, measures in the field of detention conform the country package, the restoration of good governance at the airport and providing information to financial supervisor Cft.
“The Kingdom Council of Ministers has decided to grant 48 million guilders liquidity support in the sixth tranche to St. Maarten, but conditions apply.”
Further down the road, towards the seventh tranche of liquidity support more conditions are in the pipeline. To qualify for that tranche, St. Maarten has to “actively contribute” to the agreements from the implementation agenda, to the follow-up report with the proposed kingdom law Caribbean Entity for Reform and Development (COHO) and show “concrete progress” in the field of detention.
“For the sixth and the seventh tranche St. Maarten must make the necessary follow-up steps to solve the problems at the airport and to safeguard the progress of the airport terminal reconstruction project,” Knops writes.
The state secretary also informs the Dutch parliament about the steps St. Maarten has undertaken to restore good governance at the airport. They seem to indicate that the suspended director of the airport holding, Dexter Doncher, will not return to his job and that a second member of its supervisory board (Glenn Daniel or Rochelle Hodge), is also out of a job: “The screening of two new members of the supervisory board of directors of the Princess Juliana International Airport Holding Company has begun. The Council of Ministers has appointed an implementation team to implement the advices of the Taskforce Corporate Governance and St. Maarten has hired an external company to investigate corporate governance violations. These actions give me sufficient confidence to pay out the fifth tranche of liquidity support.”
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