It’s a bit disappointing to learn from Dutch State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops in today’s paper that St. Maarten’s approved 2018 budget supposedly arrived too late to be handled in Wednesday’s Kingdom Council of Ministers meeting. After all, both the Government and Parliament in Philipsburg had gone to great lengths to make the May 8 midnight deadline and did so with more than three hours to spare.
The documents were subsequently sent to the Netherlands, but due to the time difference apparently not early enough to be processed for the next morning’s meeting. However, the deadline had been set by Dutch Justice and Security Minister Ferdinand Grappenhous and Knops himself during a meeting with the Leona Romeo-Marlin Cabinet. Surely they knew of the time difference then and could have foreseen that officials in The Hague would not be able to get this matter on the meeting’s agenda.
It’s not the end of the world, of course. The Committee for Financial Supervision CFT must still review the budget with a deficit of NAf. 197 million before it can be handled by the Kingdom Council.
Nevertheless, Knops’ sense of urgency regarding the country’s dire financial situation is completely justified, especially as some more liquidity support from its European kingdom partner may be needed to cover the huge gap between revenues and expenditures this year, along with austerity measures such as the package now being discussed that would reportedly save NAf. 20 million.
In addition, restoring the tourism economy to its former glory more quickly than – rightly conservatively – estimated, could significantly increase projected income in the months ahead and lead to favourable budget amendments. It’s important that projects executed with recovery funds made available by the Netherlands via the World Bank also help facilitate such a development.
Fasten your seatbelt, because if things work out well “The Friendly Island” may yet surprise many with its capacity to bounce back from even an extremely catastrophic disaster like Hurricane Irma. SXM Strong.
