President of Parliament Sidharth “Cookie” Bijlani (right) greets duped homebuyers at the Town Hall Meeting on Thursday evening
PHILIPSBURG—How could the Government of St. Maarten have let it come this far? This question puzzles clients of Carbon Acquisition Group d.b.a. Melbon Enterprises, as was evident from their first Town Hall Meeting on Thursday. When President of Parliament Sidharth “Cookie” Bijlani walked in to show his support, he was immediately targeted. “Why didn’t you do anything?”
The eight-point agenda for the meeting was quickly jettisoned after focus shifted from Carbon to those entities that allowed him to continue a Ponzi scheme over the last seven to eight years. Bijlani stood to defend himself as government representative.
“Government cannot be held responsible for the actions of a company,” Bijlani told those present. However, there is a Petitions Committee of Parliament, he said. This committee has as task to exam-ine written petitions submitted to the committee in accordance with article 68 of the constitution which states that the Parliament shall investigate petitions addressed to it.
“A solution has to be found,” concluded Bijlani who said he has known some of Carbon’s clients for more than twenty years. “It is their hard-earned money that has gone to Carbon. I really feel for them.”
It is not the first time Bijlani met with clients of Carbon: two years ago he called a meeting at res-taurant Sal & Pepe in Simpson Bay. Some fifteen duped homebuyers attended. “I wanted to hear their stories to see if I could help them,” said Bijlani, who is a member of the Justice Committee of Parlia-ment. However, no information obtained from the victims was ever brought to the attention of this committee.
Asked about this, Bijlani said that at the time he was under the impression that he was talking to the majority of persons caught in the Ponzi scheme. “I thought there were maybe 20 to 25 victims, but then I came to the realisation that the number was much bigger than I thought. I was taken aback by it.”
Member of Parliament (MP) Rolando Brison also joined the meeting at Sal & Pepe, in 2021. “He talked about working out a solution with us, whereby Dwain Carbon also would gain financially. That threw me off immediately,” said a woman who lost a five-figure sum to the Carbon Grove developer. “Carbon should be held accountable. Not get some sweet deal,” she said.
The Daily Herald called MP Brison numerous times but he could not be reached for comment.
On Thursday evening, during the Town Hall Meeting, Bijlani stressed that he did not attend this meeting for personal or political gain. “Nobody will be able to point a finger at me for asking not one dollar.”
A “dog fight” ensued with the group’s keynote speaker Olivier Arrindell, who told Bijlani “the Gov-ernment of St. Maarten ripped these people off under your
watch.”
A woman asked Bijlani why he did not press forward to find out more and hold Carbon accountable. Bijlani replied that Carbon’s victims are reluctant to tell their stories. “When it was asked just now who would want to share their story, nobody stood up,” he said, to which a man replied that “this is a very sensitive subject,” persons that were duped might feel shame or guilt. “But the bottom line is
that everyone has suffered the consequences,” he said.
The disgruntled clients want the CEO of Carbon Acquisition Group d.b.a. Melbon Enterprises, who is believed to be in the United States, to be extradited to St. Maarten.
“Some folks jumped to his defence saying that he made mistakes,” said a man who lost a fortune after purchasing several units in Carbon Grove. “A mistake is not intentional. But when you are selling units from your office – not even going to the notary – and you are enticing clients to pay more and more, while not giving what they anticipated, that is not a mistake.”
He went on: “Many of us were surprised to find out that our fully paid units were sold over to other individuals who then also paid in full. Or someone who paid US $120,000 was later told that only US $30,000 had been received, and for that reason the property had been mortgaged.”
One of his own units, is not even touchable, he said. “Because there are just four
walls and there is a US $240,000 mortgage on this unfinished property, while there is a contract with receipts showing that it is paid in full. It is now registered under someone else’s name.”
“And on top of that, there was a lien placed on it by a third party. How do you get out of this?” His face contorted: “This is fully criminal, fully intentional; it is just malicious.”
In five years’ time no government official went to Carbon Grove to see what was happening, said another victim. There were no building inspections, nor was Carbon’s business regulated, she said. “This man did not pay taxes. He did not pay SZV. No one who worked for him received a full salary, they all got paid bits. With black market money.”
The woman wondered aloud why Carbon’s modus operandi did not prompt the Receiver’s Office and Social & Health Insurances SZV to investigate. Several attendees responded in unison: “Because he has his cronies.”
Carbon, said the woman, “has not only been stealing from us, he is stealing from everyone; he has defrauded the Government of St. Maarten and the community at large.”
The group had hoped the Minister of Justice would have stepped up to the plate. And what is the Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure (VROMI-Ed.) waiting on?”
There is still no infrastructure in Carbon Grove; there are no paved roads, no street-lights, few homes are connected to the electrical grid or water supply. The garbage truck does not pass in the area and the rocky road leading to properties higher up the hill is not accessible for an ambulance or fire truck.
“Some persons live in Carbon Grove because they can’t afford to go somewhere else; they are pay-ing mortgages,” said a woman who had to sacrifice her son’s educational plan to finish the apartment she bought from Carbon. While the contractor hired by the single mother had reached the final stage of finishing her home, Carbon showed up with prospective clients and had the audacity to use her condo as example of the quality homes Carbon Acquisition Group creates for its customers, she re-called. “In reality, due to poor construction practices, the buildings are subsiding.”
On May 5, 2023, almost a year after requesting a meeting with VROMI Minister Egbert Doran to question risk bearing hillside construction, MP Chanel Brownbill arrived too late at the House of Par-liament to chair said meeting. Several other MPs also came in late. Acting chair William Marlin can-celled the meeting due to lack of quorum.
The mitigation of natural risks and sustainable developments in construction were scheduled as agenda point 2 and 3 for the Public Meeting of Parliament of Wednesday, January 18, chaired by MP Brownbill. It was he himself who had
requested the minister to give his view on the discussion previously held by the Committee of VROMI in June 2022.
In a letter from the committee dated June 20, 2022, signed by Brownbill, Doran was encouraged to have an audience with French geotechnical engineering expert Julien Ripert of AcrobatX BV. Three days prior, on June 17, Ripert had given a presentation to Parliament pointing out the risks of irre-sponsible excavation of hillsides.
Using maps and photographs, the geotechnical engineer had shown potentially life-threatening situations due to hillside development in Cole Bay, Simpson Bay, Madame Estate and Pointe Blanche. He had identified Carbon Grove as a development with imminent risk of a landslide with buildings coming down the hill. MPs had reacted with shock.
To date Doran has not responded to the June 20, 2022 letter from CVROMI, nor did the minister respond to MPs who, during the debates on the 2023 Budget of St. Maarten in March, asked whether he had taken the time to view the presentation given by Ripert.
The power point presentation and related documents had been sent to the Council of Ministers and directly to Doran. While he was off island during the budget debate, acting VROMI Minister Ardwell Irion could not confirm
that Doran had taken note of the risk assessment.
Irion himself said, when asked about Carbon Grove during the Council of
Ministers’ press briefing of September 27, 2023, that “this is a private situation” that resulted from “disinformation about the real estate project.” The minister took the opportunity to emphatically state that he, Doran and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs “have absolutely nothing to do with this pro-ject”.
Carbon’s clients’ eyes are now on the President of Parliament. Bijlani told participants in the Town Hall Meeting on Thursday that he would call the meeting on mitigation of natural risks and sustaina-ble developments in construction, and proceed with or without Minister Doran present.
