Finance Minister Ardwell Irion.
PHILIPSBURG--Finance Minister Ardwell Irion is confident that the NAf. 39 million liquidity support for St. Maarten will eventually be disbursed.
“I do believe that the current tie-in for the conditions for liquidity support goes against our agreements that we had since March. We have lived up to all our agreements, but I also do believe that based on our conversations and meetings and our efforts as a government, that this liquidity support will be eventually disbursed. I am pretty sure of that,” Irion said in response to a question during the live Council of Ministers meeting.
“I believe that good corporate governance should not be requested by any outside party. I believe that as government and as a country that should be our goal no matter what, and it is our goal.”
He said the Netherlands would like to see good corporate governance at Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA), which is something that Irion also wants to see realised at the facility.
“They also questioned if we believe that everything is operating at a high corporate governance level in terms of integrity and so forth, and that is something we have to evaluate as a Council of Ministers ourselves.” He said the government has been addressing these concerns since taking office.
The finance minister said he does not believe that St. Maarten is at war with the Netherlands. “We went to the Netherlands, we had pretty good meetings, of course some of them were more heated than others, but we had good meetings. Our efforts...as a government, are also showing effects. We have enough liquidity to pay our civil servants. The liquidity support that was coming…will be affecting the payroll support programme of the SSRP [St. Marten Stimulus and Relief Plan – Ed.],” Irion said.
He said the results of government’s efforts to lower costs are being seen and he is being stricter with finances. “I know I have become an even stricter minister of finance in the last few months, and that is to keep us afloat for the next month while we wait on the liquidity. I do not believe that we are at war with the Netherlands. I believe that, yes, we lived up to all agreements. They have made additional conditions which I believe are unfortunate, but we will, in my opinion, get the disbursement of liquidity.”
