PM Silveria Jacobs during the virtual meeting on Wednesday.
PHILIPSBURG—The Kingdom Council of Ministers has approved the first tranche of NAf. 20.5 million to assist St. Maarten with the implementation of its St. Maarten Stimulus Support Relief Plan (SSRP).
The disclosure was made by Prime Minister and Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Chairperson Silveria Jacobs during a virtual meeting of the Central Committee of Parliament on the coronavirus COVID-19 on Wednesday. Dutch Representative in Philipsburg Chris Johnson also confirmed the amount to The Daily Herald last night.
In response to a question from United St. Maarten Party (US Party) Member of Parliament (MP) Claudius Buncamper, Jacobs said the first tranche of 20.5 million had been approved on May 1 to assist with SSRP. This amount, she said will be a loan with zero per cent interest.
Jacobs said that according to a notification she had just received while at the meeting, the funds had been approved by the Kingdom Council of Ministers, representing the first tranche of COVID-19 liquidity support for the country and are directly for the SSRP. “This is our first COVID-19 liquidity support,” she said.
Finance Minister Ardwell Irion, who joined the meeting towards the end to provide clarity, confirmed that he had received an email from the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT on the Kingdom Council of Ministers’ May 1 decision, but said he is still to be updated on the 20.5 million.
He spoke about the NAf. 44 million government had received recently after deductions from the NAf. 50.2 million liquidity support for 2019. These funds were initially for the country’s reserves, he said.
However, government decided to apply the funds to execute the SSRP. Irion said the last advice relayed by CFT from the Kingdom Council of Ministers’ discussions was that St. Maarten had sufficient liquidity to start its SSRP.
The government of St. Maarten has requested NAf. 254 million in aid from the Netherlands to cover the cost of the SSRP for the first three months. The SSRP is to cover “direct relief,” which includes a payroll-support programme, income-support programme, a soft loan programme and an under-employed programme for an amount of NAf. 108.44 million. For the unemployed, the established unemployment benefits will continue.
The SSRP also includes funds to compensate for the loss of government income for an amount of NAf. 89.2 million to enable government to carry out already-existing but now-expanded programmes, a food-voucher programme and a food-boxes programme for the most vulnerable groups, meals for the elderly and psychosocial care. NAf. 56.28 million has been budgeted for additional healthcare expenses and support to Social and Health Insurances SZV and St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC).
Up to Tuesday, one day before the Wednesday deadline, a total of 358 employers representing a total of 5,634 employees had applied for payroll support via SZV from the SSRP. The application deadline for payroll support had been extended to midnight Wednesday, May 6.
