It turns out the US $240 million in financing offered for Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) by JPF/Vidanova does not include the estimated $80 million expansion with US pre-clearance as well as improvements to the apron and parking facilities (see page 9 of Friday paper). That impression was certainly created by PJIA shareholder representative Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) Stuart Johnson in a press release about a recent presentation of the plans and subsequently during Wednesday’s weekly press briefing.
What the document implies is that buying out the bondholders would free up insurance monies now kept in security, which could then possibly be used for the addition. That’s a different story than what the public was originally made to believe.
In principle there is nothing wrong with entertaining alternative financing options for the reconstruction of the airport. However, this should have been done before commitments were already made at government-level regarding a grant from the Dutch-sponsored Trust Fund managed by the World Bank and a soft loan from the European Development Bank (EDB), for US $50 million each.
The presentation had thus been untimely to say the least, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was also completely in vain. Perhaps the same consortium could instead even consider financing just the US pre-clearance facility as a separate initiative and work alongside, rather against the existing project.
That would make everyone a winner.
