SXMElections.com

Answers Will Have To Wait Until Mid-January: Parliament Wants Clarity About Housing Foundation

St. Maarten – Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs answered the call to appear in Parliament as the acting minister of public housing within 72 hours after he was sworn in on Friday. Members of Parliament appreciated that, even though Gumbs sent them on their way with a flea in their ear, after listening to questions about the chaos of the St. Maarten Housing Development foundation for more than two hours.

The minister brought to mind the words he spoke on Friday in the constituting meeting where his team officially took over the reins: “The country needs tranquility, stability, civility and prosperity.”

Furthermore, Gumbs noted: “Integrity has been a buzz word this year Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

The Road To The Gumbs I Cabinet: “Peddling Seats To The Highest Bidder”

St. Maarten / By Hilbert Haar – When Governor Drs. Eugene Holiday administers the oath of office to the five ministers of the Gumbs I cabinet this afternoon, it marks the end of a tedious process that started during the night after the parliamentary elections on August 29. How did we get where we are today? A review.

To avoid any misunderstandings, the governor also administers the oath to the minister plenipotentiary today – but that is not a ‘real’ minister – it is the representative of St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Minister Cornelius De Weever Resigns From The Democratic Party

St. Maarten —Minister Cornelius de Weever yesterday officially severed ties with the Democratic Party by officially informing the leader of that party and care taker Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams that he is resigning from the party.

Minister De Weever ran on the DP’s ticket in the August 2014 elections but secretly formed a coalition with the UP party shortly after the elections while the DP had publicly announced that it has signed an agreement and was forming a coalition with the US and NA Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Premiers Of Former Netherlands Antilles Boycott Kingdom Day

WILLEMSTAD – The Prime Ministers of Curaçao, Aruba and St. Maarten are boycotting the celebration of Kingdom Day. They refuse to travel to Amsterdam to attend the traditional Kingdom Concert in the presence of King Willem Alexander.

According to a reliable source in The Hague the three prime ministers of the three islands are so angry at the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte they have stated that they will not be present. This is especially painful because next Monday an anniversary celebration will be held Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

“The Initiative Is Up To The Caribbean Islands” – Dutch Parliament Divided About Commonwealth

THE HAGUE – The Netherlands cannot force the Caribbean islands to change the Kingdom into a Commonwealth. In spite of this, the Second Chamber reflected yesterday on a plan (from the Socialist Party and the VVD) to do this, Jamila Baaziz reports on Caribisch Netwerk.

VVD and SP say that they are in particular after ‘clarity and a vision’ and that they want to kick-start the discussion with their initiative memorandum. But PvdA, Christian Union, CDA and D66 do not want to exclude any option Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Lloyd Richardson Elected Chairman Of Parliament

St. Maarten – Parliament elected Dr. Lloyd Richardson of the faction of the United People’s party yesterday morning as the successor of Sarah Wescot-Williams as its chairman Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Prominent Podiatrist Zenia Duncan Dies

St. Maarten -Prominent podiatrist and health advocate Zenia Duncan passed away Sunday morning after a brief but courageous battle with leukemia. Leukemia is a group of cancers that usually begins in the bone marrow and results in high numbers of abnormal white blood cells.

Duncan had always been a proponent of healthy living and devoted her resources and time to disseminating nutritional information and diabetes awareness.

Her clinic at the Heritage House on Front Street, Barefeet Chiropody, was a successful practice that offered foot care, surgery, examinations and treatment especially to the elderly and diabetic community on St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Financial reports catch up

GREAT BAY – The Central Committee of Parliament met yesterday afternoon under peculiar circumstances. Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams, the former president of parliament and now sitting on her chair as an elected MP for the Democratic Party quizzed Finance Minister Martin Hassink – member of the outgoing cabinet – about the 2011 financial statement Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Editorial: Follow The Money

The enormity of former Finance Minister Roland Tuitt’s move to take all tax debts from 1976-2006 off the books is beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. According to the Social Economic Council Tuitt let go of 4.47 billion guilders in arrears – approximately ten times the country’s current national budget.

If the policy document Tuitt signed in 2013 – ten days after the fall of the second Wescot-Williams cabinet – is indeed unlawful as the SER claims, one may well wonder whether this measure fits within the framework of departure policy.

If that is so, it begs the question who would stand to benefit the most from this unexpected Christmas gift Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Letter From St. Maarten’S Council Of Ministers To Rutte And Plasterk: No Cooperation With Additional Screening

St. Maarten – The Council of Ministers will not cooperate with the instruction to Governor Holiday to subject candidate-ministers for the new cabinet to additional screening. In a letter, signed by outgoing Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams, the council makes this position clear to Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Kingdom Relations Minister Ronald Plasterk Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Pm Wescot-Williams Expresses Condolences To The Family Of Crash Victims

St. Maarten – Care taker Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams yesterday expressed her condolences to the victims of the fatal Skyway Airways flight which crashed on Wednesday evening. The one confirmed deceased and one missing pilot were the only two souls on board. “I would like to express my sincerest condolences to the victims of the Skyway Airways crash Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Other Parties Stay Away From Protest Against Kingdom And Plasterk – Green March Against Instruction

St. Maarten– Between 300 and 400 people took part in the march People United for True Democracy organized yesterday afternoon in protest against the instruction from the Kingdom Council of Ministers to Governor Holiday for a stricter screening of candidate ministers – a handsome turnout with one flaw: only supporters of the United People’s party showed up.

UP party leader Theo Heyliger was there, as were his faction leader Franklin Meyers, MP Tamara Leonard and MP Lloyd Richardson Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Analysis: Screening Of Candidate-Ministers Seems At Odds With Constitution

St. Maarten / By Hilbert Haar – Screening? What screening? Nobody has asked this simple question yet, because everybody has been either busy and confused, or excited and angry about the humongous cloud of dust the Kingdom Council of Ministers created with its instruction to Governor Holiday for additional screening of candidate-ministers. One may well wonder which instruments the experts Minister Plasterk wants to send to St. Maarten have at their disposal to find something so wrong with one of the candidates that this will give reason to ban them from becoming a minister.

St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Icon Mike Ferrier Resigns From Democratic Party

St. Maarten – Mike Ferrier has terminated his membership of the Democratic Party out of disappointment over the way party-leader Sarah Wescot-Williams handled the defection of her number 2 candidate Cornelius de Weever to a coalition with the United People’s party and the subsequent decision by Wescot-Williams to follow suit.

“I cannot subscribe to abandoning all that we campaigned on and claimed to stand for prior to August 29, 2014, by joining a government that has been given life by a person, or a couple of people from within our DP-ranks who seem to be driven only by power, greed and self-interest,” Ferrier – who was the party’s public relations officer – writes in a letter to Wescot-Williams dated last Friday, October 17 Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Roland Plasterk Wanted Secret Service Undercover In St. Maarten

St. Maarten – Kingdom Relations Minister Roland Plasterk asked Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams to let the Dutch secret service AIVD operate in St. Maarten under the flag of the country’s own security service VDSM “to carry out the screening according to the criteria set by the minister,” Wescot-Williams wrote in an email to this newspaper.

According to the prime minister this is in essence what the governor now has been instructed to do, “but then on my instruction via the St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Efforts To Increase Tax Compliance Fail

Audit Chamber report Optimizing Tax Revenue

St. Maarten – All efforts to increase tax compliance and tax revenue during the past three years have failed. This appears from the performance audit Optimizing Tax Revenue the General Audit Chamber published last week.

The Finance Minister in the first Wescot-Williams cabinet, Hiro Shigemoto, stated in the 2011 budget “that improvement of the functioning of the organization for assessment and collection together with the introduction of a simplified system should lead, in the coming years, to an additional 20 million guilders in tax revenue Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Cruise Conference Opens At Port Facility “St. Maarten Earned These Passengers”     

St. Maarten – Michele Paige, President of the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, opened the 21st Annual FCCA Cruise Conference and Trade show Opening Ceremony last night at the Port of St. Maarten, saying, “The event comes with a lot of hard work. It’s with your hard work that the FCCA exists.” This is the second time St. Maarten has played host to the FCCA event. Kevin Sheehan, President and CEO, Norwegian Cruise Line/FCCA Chairman took the stage to discuss the cruise industry and St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Former Ministers Distributed Bus And Taxi Permits Like Candy

St. Maarten – Moratoriums on economic licenses “appear to be lifted by ministers in a subjective manner” the PricewaterhouseCoopers integrity report observes. Minister of Tourism and Economic Affairs Ted Richardson has, in the past half year, lifted moratoriums on bars and restaurants, car rentals and casinos. It also appears that former Ministers Franklin Meyers and Romeo Pantophlet issued between them 161 taxi licenses and 52 bus permits to specific individuals at the end of their term in government in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

In February, the moratorium for bars and restaurants was lifted because “the government wants to stimulate entrepreneurship and the economic growth of St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Pink October: Smmc Holds Open House For Breast Cancer Awareness

St. Maarten – Pink was the color of choice at the St. Maarten Medical Center’s open house on Saturday, Oct 4, which was held in honor of breast cancer awareness and the fight against breast cancer itself. Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor Cornelius de Weever and PM Sarah Wescot-Williams were in attendance Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

“Justice Ministry Frontrunner In The Region” “Exemplary” Code Of Conduct

St. Maarten – “Working as a stripper or pole dancer.” That is on the “not-to-do-list” in the code of conduct for civil servants that work at the Ministry of Justice. It is an example among many, one that may speak more to the imagination than suggestions not to use a department-car to go to the beach, or not to print complete books on a printer in the office.

During a ceremony at the University of St. Martin, PricewaterhouseCoopers Dutch Caribbean presented the code of conduct, the first milestone in an integrity-journey that began six months ago with a presentation at the Claude Wathey Legislative Hall, followed by sessions at the Justice Academy, the prison and the airport Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Cosme Program Aims To Stimulate Local And Regional Economies

St. Maarten – Stakeholders from different Caribbean islands came together at the COSME (Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories Small and Medium Enterprises) 2-day Stakeholder Forum with the common goal of creating a healthy and stable economic environment within the Caribbean region for small and medium-sized enterprises through the development of a regional SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) program. Divi Little Bay Beach Resort hosted the event. Each country present developed and submitted its own individual SME program, based on its economy, to meet the needs of its local business enterprises Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Prime Minister Has Nothing But Smooth Answers To Integrity Questions

St. Maarten – Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams had nothing but smooth answers to questions about the PricewaterhouseCoopers integrity report yesterday but then, her term in office comes to an end just eight days from now and from the way things stand now, she will not have to deal with it from an executive position anymore.

Wescot-Williams said that the government is ready to take over the recommendations from the PWC-integrity report, adding that the new government that will soon take office also ought to get an opportunity to react to it Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Pwc-Integrity Report: Ministers Meddle In Day To Day Operations Of Their Departments

St. Maarten – Senior public officials throughout the government have failed consistently to set the tone that exemplifies the highest standards of personal and professional integrity. This is among the findings PricewaterhouseCoopers researchers have included in their integrity inquiry into the functioning of the Government of St. Maarten.

The report contains a stunning collection of examples that show how ministers and high-ranking civil servants alike use their clout to frustrate the functioning of departments Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Bewilderment In Dp About Appointment Informateurs

St. Maarten – Democratic Party leader Sarah Wescot-Williams used air quotes yesterday afternoon to express her bewilderment about Governor Holiday’s decision to appoint two informateurs on  Thursday, after UP-leader Theo Heyliger’s presentation of a coalition-agreement signed by eight elected members of the new parliament.

When the DP, together with the National Alliance and the United St Read more

---

Candidates in this article: