Some folks will no doubt be breathing a sigh of relief over the news that Dutch police assistance provided since the catastrophic passing of Hurricane Irma will continue after September 1 (see related story). Additional law enforcement manpower but also vehicles and other materials from the Netherlands greatly contributed to restoring a sense of security in uncertain times following the storm’s widespread destruction and subsequent looting.
Talks on details are still ongoing, but the latest commitment made in The Hague is certainly a reassuring thought. Having two dozen additional officers help patrol the streets and keep order was considered invaluable by many.
It’s only a temporary solution, of course, as the local force has between 130 and 140 full-time employees when that should ideally be around 300. To say there is a shortage of personnel would therefore be an understatement, so efforts to recruit and train more must be intensified.
Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations State Secretary Raymond Knops wants to keep the number of persons sent to work on the island as limited as possible, also because their cost is deducted from the reconstruction budget. The latter may be true, but a lot of people would probably say that it’s worth it.
The importance of an adequate level of safety to the island’s slowly recovering tourism economy cannot be overemphasised. With most of a 470-million-euro Trust Fund made available at the World Bank for St. Maarten still untouched, one could think of worse ways to spend the money.
