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Driver License Examiner, Vks Gun Controller Not Suspended After Causing Fatal Accident.

~ No advice sent to Minister of TEATT informing him that the civil servant is under investigation. ~

PHILIPSBURG: --- The civil servant and VKS gun controller and officer Charles Samuel who caused the fatal accident on L. B Scot Road on Wednesday, August 25th, 2021 is still on active duty and not suspended even though the police has started an investigation into the deadly accident that left Simpson Bay resident Jason Peterson dead.
Based on research conducted by SMN News it turned out that the driver of the SUV that was involved in the accident is the brother of Minister of Education Rodolphe Samuel.
Besides having a brother in the Council of Ministers, the driver is also a civil servant that works at the Ministry of TEATT at the Drivers License Department and is responsible for conducting the driver's licenses examination on St Read more

PHILIPSBURG:--- On Friday morning, Member of Parliament (MP) Claudius Buncamper, faction leader of the United St. Maarten Party (USP) in parliament, together with his faction staff Fernando Clark met with a number of vendors operating on the Ring Road side of the Walter Nisbeth Road Read more

PHILIPSBURG:--- On Saturday, April 17, 2021, the management of Port St. Maarten welcomed 159 passengers aboard the Celebrity Reflection cruise ship who were evacuated from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines due to the eruption of La Soufrire volcano. Prime Minister Silveria E. Jacobs, Minister of Justice Anna E. Richardson, Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transportation and Telecommunications Secretary-General, Miguel De Weever, and Foreign Affairs Department Acting Head Patrice Gumbs were all present to ensure any needed assistance was rendered to the passengers Read more

~ Government has no money to pay for quarantine facility.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- St. Maarten is now moving towards its recovery phases from the COVID-19 pandemic announced Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs on Saturday at the EOC press conference.

Jacobs said that it is now 11 days since St. Maarten registered a positive case of the COVID-19, currently, there are no patients at the St Read more

~ De-escalation process begins with stiff social distancing measures and facial masks must be used.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- The EOC and the Multi-Disciplinary Task Force have decided to allow a number of businesses to reopen as of Monday, May 11th which is phase 1 of the de-escalation process. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said that phase 1 ends on May 18th and by then other businesses will be allowed to open for business Read more

~ De-escalation process begins with stiff social distancing measures and facial masks must be used.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- The EOC and the Multi-Disciplinary Task Force have decided to allow a number of businesses to reopen as of Monday, May 11th which is phase 1 of the de-escalation process. Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said that phase 1 ends on May 18th and by then other businesses will be allowed to open for business Read more

~Frontline workers and seniors will be allowed to pay bills this week at GEBE.~

PHILIPSBURG:--- The EOC has decided to extend the shutdown on St. Maarten for another week, Chair of the EOC and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs said that even though some measures were lifted EOC feels that since the lockdown the curve on COVID-19 is flattening and such they need more time to conduct further testing and further flatten the curve Read more

PHILIPSBURG:--- Prime Minister and Chair of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Silveria Jacobs hereby updates the general public for today, Monday, April 21, 2020, as part of the process to keep the community of St. Maarten informed about the latest developments and the Governments COVID-19 containment, mitigation and response measures. 

COVID-19 Cases 

Based on the latest available data, as updated by CPS Epidemiologist Eva Lista-de Weever, the counts for April 21, 2020 as of 5:00 PM are as follows: 

Self-Quarantine:      130Self-Isolation: 95 Number Hospitalized:    7 SMMC and 2 in the Mobile Medical PavilionNumber Tested:         258Number Positive:  71Male: 49 Female: 21 Number Negative:      141Number Pending: 45Inconclusive: 1 Deceased: 11 (1 person passed away at SMMC, sadly, during last night after a long battle in ICU) Recovered:  22Active Cases:  38

 

As of today, April 21, 2020, SMMC currently has 9 COVID-19 suspected or confirmed patients admitted Read more

PHILIPSBURG:--- The EOC and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs is satisfied with the reaction of the St. Maarten community who were given the opportunity to shop on Thursday and Friday as the lockdown continues for the next three weeks.
Prime Minister Jacobs in response to a questioned by SMN News said that St. Maarten already spent over NAF2.4 million at CPS that is busy with the testing and monitoring of COVID-19 patients Read more

4 Covid-19 Related Deaths On St. Maarten, Two Within One Day.

~ Isolation facility and beds secured, total shutdown pending~

PHILIPSBURG:--- The EOC on Dutch St. Maarten announced on Friday that four (4) COVID-19 patients have died, two of which passed on Friday morning, so far there are 23 confirmed cases, most of which are males that are being confined at home.

Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs and head of CPS Eva Lista De Weever have called on residents of St Read more

~ Health Declaration was given to St. Maarten prior to berthing. ~

PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of VSA Pamela Gordon Carty assured the community of St. Maarten that there are no cases of Corona Virus (#2019nCoV,) onboard AIDA PERLA that is currently docked in St. Maarten.
Gordon Carty said all necessary procedures were followed and that persons on the ship had the flu and they were cleared medically.
The Minister said since Monday night CPS and other parties were involved in ensuring there is no threat to St Read more

Meeting to discuss Insel Air Scheduled.

PHILIPSBURG: --- Minister of Justice Raphael Boasman told members of the media that after holding meetings with Chief of Police Carl John and Chief Prosecutor Ton Maan they have decided to put a plan of action to deal with the ongoing situation at the prison. Without divulging information the Minister said that there will be more actions taken which will show in the near future that actions are being taken to better manage the prison system. He stressed that the raid that took place on Tuesday with the involvement of the marines are one of those actions Read more

>GREAT BAY(DCOMM):--- Ten civil servants from the Government of Sint Maarten has completed five days of training in a Basic User and Database Administration workshop. The workshop started June 1st and concluded on June 5th.

Organized by the National Development Plan (NDP) team from the Department of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BAK), the implementing agency for NDP project, the 10 civil servants now have the knowledge to work with the country databases SintMaartenInfo and CensusInfo Sint Maarten.

A follow-up training will be the next step – training the trainers – that will enable the 10 civil servants to assists others in learning how to utilize the database system.

Representatives from the Department of Statistics will also in the near future travel to the United States (New York) for a more advanced training at a Learning Lab.

Representatives of the various ministries now know how to create and manage databases within their ministry and how to upload their processed data into SintMaartenInfo for all stakeholders inside and outside of government to use - search for data, produce objects like tables, graphs and maps for presentations and reporting purposes to regional and international entities.

The Secretary Generals of the seven ministries were given a presentation on Wednesday morning and they were pleasantly surprised by what SintMaarteninfo looked like and the amount of data that was already in the database.

The information included Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) data as well as population and housing census data Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (Ministry TEATT) Honorable Claret Connor earlier this week attended an oath-taking ceremony of civil servants from the Ministry TEATT that took place in the A. C. Wathey Legislative Hall.
The oath-taking complies with the regulation that all civil servants must take the oath in order to receive their National Decree and be appointed as a civil servant of the national government administration body.
Oath-taking is also an integral part of the integrity system of the Government of Sint Maarten Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:---  St. Maarten needs airlift. The island cannot be dependent upon North American traffic anymore..." This is according to Olivier Arrindell, Chairman of AVA Airways.
Recently Mr. Arrindell and The President of AVA Airways Mr. Giovanni Atalita presented AVA Airways plans to the Ministry of Transportation, Civil Aviation and Economic Development, "One of our main objectives is to learn from the past and to propose a bold new direction for commercial aviation in St. Maarten Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:--- The Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication Claret Connor (first on the right), met with the Policy Department of the Ministry – Economy, Transport and Telecommunication February 18th,2015. The Minister met with the general staff, followed by a meeting with the Secretary General, Miguel De Weever, department head, Lucy Richardson along with members of his Kabinet Read more

>GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- Representatives from the Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunications (Ministry TEATT) namely, Louis Halley, Head of Civil Aviation, Claudius Carty, Acting Section Head of Shipping and Inspection, and Secretary General Miguel De Weever, met with the Council of Ministers (COM) recently to brief the council with respect to the current state of affairs of both departments.

The presentation provided an update on the Category 1 and 2 statuses related to the country's aviation sector Read more

EXCLUSIVE: More Trouble for UPP/De Weever/LRMarlin Coalition.

style="text-align: center;">Fifth Minister has problem with screening --- Three years of taxes were not paid. De Weever to appoint his sister as Minister of VSA --- Reliable Sources.

PHILIPSBURG:--- As the days go by there seems to be more trouble for the UPP/De Weever/LRMarlin coalition government when it comes to forming a government.
SMN News understands that a fifth candidate that was submitted to the governor did not fully pass the screening because that person who is currently acting as a caretaker Minister did not pay his taxes for at least three years Read more

style="text-align: center;">TODAY Newspaper Editor in Chief could have confirmed the screening reports by asking their Publisher.

PHILIPSBURG:--- Some of the candidates that ran on the UPP slate are enraged because they said they were treated like children when their party leader Theodore Heyliger interrogated them to see if any of them would have told him who leaked the screening results to SMN News Read more

style="text-align: center;">Curacao Policy Advisor to be Appointed Minister of VSA by MP Lloyd Richardson

PHILIPSBURG:--- Two months and days after the August 29th Parliamentary Elections there is still no Government on St. Maarten and while the Governor of St. Maarten has extended the formation period for the UPP/De Weever/Marlin coalition to appoint a Ministerial cabinet Read more

USM Hosting Book Presentation Six for Nine.

>PHILIPSBURG:--- The University of St. Martin (USM) will be hosting a presentation on the book "Six 4 Nine" written by Mr. Joseph Lake Jr. followed by a panel discussion. Six 4 Nine is about the people of St. Martin, it argues that the Country and Collectivité are colonies that are not in the interest of the people of St. Martin. The book champions independence as the main solution to the problems on the island.
A patriotic book is a cry, a critique, and a challenge; it tries in these three tonalities to convey the author's prophetic opinion on the current state of his society Read more

Justice Academy’s Anniversary.

style="text-align: left;">PHILIPSBURG:--- On Monday September 15, 2014, the Minister of Justice the Honorable Dennis Richardson attended a ceremony commemorating the 2nd Anniversary of the existence of the Justice Academy and it's achievements to date. The Minister spoke about the Justice Academy being a continuation of a project initiative of the previous Minister of Justice Mr. Roland Duncan and it being a positive institution with great challenges, but that offer at same time the opportunity for it to become a center of excellence for education and training in the Justice sector Read more