PHILIPSBURG — If the government implements and enforces rules, the government should also stick to the rules, the Law Enforcement Council states in its fourth report in six years about the management of St. Maarten’s Crime Fund. That is not happening: the government and the responsible ministry of justice have been dragging their feet for years when it comes to executing five recommendations from the Council.
It is therefore not surprising that the Council is threatening with measures. If the structural non-compliance with its recommendations continues it will inform the Dutch Representative of the Kingdom in St. Maarten and the Kingdom Council of Ministers about the situation.
There is ample reason to urge the government to get its management of the crime fund in order, because the fund contains a lot of money and some of it has been used during the past six year to pay for expenditures the government could not cover from its regular budget. On February 28, 2025, the fund had 7,796,255 guilders ($4,355,450) in its bank account. Of this amount 3,745,910 guilders ($2,092,687) was for the fund itself and the rest (4,050,345 guilders or $2,262,763) for other purposes like strengthening of border control and for the administrative approach to undermining criminality.
For the third time in a row there is insufficient progress with the execution of five of its recommendations, the Council states in its report, adding that the compliance percentage has been stuck on 25 for years. “The Council does not understand or accept the delay in the execution of its recommendations.”
The administration of the fund is such a mess that citizens who have paid a fine have to go to the prosecutor’s office with proof of payment to make clear that they did what they had to do. “This puts a burden on citizens for something that is the responsibility of the government,” the Council observes.
Th Council is also irritated about the attitude of the Ministry of Justice: it received no reaction whatsoever to its previous two reports.
“The objective of the fund is to finance projects designed to fight criminality,” Council-chair Marlène Koelewijn writes in the report. “But this has been violated for years.”
To illustrate the shortcoming of the Crime Fund’s administration, the report notes that fines citizens pay at the Receiver’s office are directly transferred to the account of the Ministry of Finance. Because the registration information at this account is sketchy it is impossible to establish the amount of money the ministry owes to the fund.
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