An inexplicable oddity in the 2018 budget

By Hilbert Haar

The 2018 budget contains a riddle that I have not been able to solve, despite several attempts to get clarity from those who submitted that budget to Parliament. So maybe there is someone out there who knows more about this little conundrum.

This is the case. The chapter about the Ministry of General Affairs contains a heading that reads: Risco’s binnen de Beleidsuitvoering (Risks within the execution of policies). It describes the risks the ministry is facing during the budget year that could potentially jeopardize the execution of its tasks or the financing of its projects.

Under 4. I read: “De overheid heeft zich contractueel verbonden om studieschuld af te lossen. Het schrappen of inkorten van deze begrotingspost is onverantwoord en zal kunnen leiden tot rechtszaken tegen de overheid.”

I quote the text in Dutch to anticipate the notion that the meaning of this text got lost in translation.

Basically it says that the government is bound by contract to repay study debt, that eliminating or decreasing this budget post is irresponsible and that it could result in lawsuits against the government.

I first asked Minister Jorien Wuite (Education) what this was all about. I always thought that the government granted study loans, but I’d never heard that the government repaid them as well. I could not imagine that the government had taken it upon itself to repay the massive study debt St. Maarten students have outstanding with the Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs (DUO) in the Netherlands; last time I looked this debt was well over $30 million.

Minister Wuite did not have an explanation at the ready, but she assured me that it was not about the outstanding study debts in the Netherlands.

I studied the budget some more and discovered that the paragraph is not in the budget for Wuite’s ministry, but in that of the prime minister – general affairs.

So when I encountered Prime Minister Leona Marlin-Romeo during the visit of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the airport, I asked her about it.  She was as baffled as I still am and could not explain it. Maybe it’s a translation error, she offered, but that cannot be, because I referred to the text in Dutch.

Finally I decided to send an email to Minister Wuite, specifying where I had found the paragraph and asking again for an explanation. I also pointed out that nowhere in the budget did I find a line item that corresponded with the contractual obligation to repay study debts.

We’re now a few weeks further down the line and I am still waiting for an answer. Maybe there is an attentive civil servant out there who is able to explain this to me, to the people of St. Maarten and to the members of parliament who never asked a question about this oddity in the 2018 budget.