A letter by State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops to the Second Chamber of Dutch Parliament reported on in today’s paper sheds new light on developments at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA). He claims St. Maarten doesn’t seem very interested in US $100 million financing offered by The Hague and the European Investment Bank (EIB) to reconstruct the facility.
According to Knops, there is a ready-to-implement plan approved by the Steering Committee of the Trust Fund, which set certain conditions having to do with integrity functions in management and the supervisory board. He added that international expertise is required and the group managing Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands showed its willingness to get involved.
The local government was to receive the half grant/half loan and in turn have operating company PJIAE borrow the entire amount to rebuild the badly damaged terminal. However, it appears talks are being held instead with other potential financiers and Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin was asked why.
This newspaper learned late on Tuesday that government has not rejected any offer of financing from the Dutch and that airport management has been instructed by Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin to give a breakdown of the conditions that would come with such a loan.
The prime minister has asked the board to outline by January 4, 2019, all the conditions requested by the World Bank/the Dutch government alongside that of Pipper Jaffray and Co., a company being looked at as a possible financier. According to people close to the issue, the prime minister has informed the Council of Ministers that she has reservations about the selection of an option for the capital financing for the airport reconstruction without a proper review of both offers.
That this news broke on the very day PJIA celebrated its 75th anniversary and the partial reopening of the terminal (see related story) can be viewed as rather unfortunate. However, at least the public now has a better idea of what’s going on behind the scenes with the island’s main gateway that is obviously crucial to the destination’s tourism economy.
The need for decisions on the modalities for financing and governance arrangements of the airport was also mentioned by the World Bank. It is conducting a corporate assessment of both PJIAE and the airport holding company.
Perhaps the latter is why different options are being explored, but time is clearly of the essence. With hotels and restaurants reopening on a weekly basis at the moment, the need to increase the airlift capacity speaks for itself.
The Council of Ministers indeed has some explaining to do and its weekly Wednesday press briefing provides the perfect opportunity.
