NA MP Ardwell Irion
PHILIPSBURG--Government’s decision to not sell its shares in local airline WINAIR was described as “a missed opportunity” by former Finance Minister and now Member of Parliament (MP) Ardwell Irion on Thursday.
He made the remarks during the Central Committee meeting on the draft amendment of the 2024 budget. While he was caretaker Finance Minister presenting the 2024 budget back in March, Irion had announced that government had been exploring the possibilities of selling its shares in local carrier WINAIR and an amount of NAf. 13 million had been included in the budget as increased revenue for this.
The new Mercelina cabinet decided that it will not sell the WINAIR shares, with Prime Minister Dr Luc Mercelina saying recently that the proposed sale price does not reflect the true value of WINAIR and to sell under these circumstances would not be in the best interest of either the country or the company.
Irion responded to the sitting government’s decision on Thursday. “Government said they are not selling WINAIR shares. I think that’s a missed opportunity,” Irion said. “I believe that the shares would have been able to bring relief to the persons, the citizens, affected by GEBE today and I want to be very, very clear on the process that we had because it wasn’t that we alone wanted WINAIR shares to be sold. WINAIR themselves wanted to sell shares so that government would have generated money to be able to put anywhere.
“The concept that we had was that a portion of those shares would be going to the staff of WINAIR. All shares would be sold to local entities like APS [pension fund – Ed.]. A portion of those shares would be sold to the general public, which means that instead of taking out a loan at 5 or 6 percent the public would be able to participate and invest in WINAIR and be able to collect dividends over the next how many years. So, I think, again, it’s a missed opportunity and an opportunity that would have allowed locals St Maarteners to be able to have something to invest in.
“There is not much opportunity for us to invest. Persons buy cars, which is not necessarily an asset. Going into real estate is expensive. We don’t have access to trading facilities like in the US. So, allowing locals to be able to collect dividends on a local entity I believe is a very, very big missed opportunity. But I believe, seeing how things are going we will be back there very, very, very, soon.”
Irion had told Parliament back in March that a couple of entities had expressed interest in purchasing the shares. He had said at the time that WINAIR’s exemplary performance in the past two years made it an optimal time to sell the shares.
