Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
PHILIPSBURG--Pending the outcome of the court case concerning the validity of his reappointment as GEBE’s Chief Operations Officer (COO) and Managing Director, the Court of First Instance has ordered Romelio Maduro not to perform any acts of administration on behalf of the utility company.
Maduro was also banned from accessing the GEBE offices. The Judge also empowered GEBE to scrap Maduro’s name as company director from the Chamber of Commerce’s registers.
GEBE’s Supervisory Board and Maduro squared off in the Court of First Instance in an injunction concerning his suspension. The case is also aimed at the decision of Country St. Maarten as GEBE’s shareholder to extend Maduro’s contract by two years.
GEBE wants to get Maduro’s reappointment off the table and wants government to retract its decision. To this end, GEBE also has filed a regular court procedure.
On May 29, shareholder representative of GEBE Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs, in his capacity of caretaker minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI, rejected a request of the GEBE board not to extend Maduro’s contract.
Initially, GEBE had no objections to Maduro’s reappointment, but following reports that Maduro allegedly had abused his position and had harmed the company, it called on the shareholder representative to retract the two-year reappointment.
GEBE suspended Maduro on June 11, and placed him on non-active duty for a two-month period, as of that day.
Among allegations against Maduro are “unusual transactions†and financial irregularities, “neglect†and the inappropriate use of company credit cards. It is not yet known when the main case will be heard.
