World Bank-administered Dutch Recovery Trust Fund Steering Committee representatives Frans Weekers (the Netherlands) and Marcel Gumbs (St. Maarten) and Director-General for the Windward Islands Reconstruction Programme Hans Leijtens toured several sites and potential project locations this past week. They also met the Council of Ministers and Interim Recovery Committee. Weekers was on a week-long working visit to St. Maarten. The Dutch government has earmarked 550 million euros for St. Maarten’s recovery. A significant portion – 470 million euros – is managed by the World Bank. The first part (112 million euros) will be used for urgent projects and programmes. Future projects will be selected by agreement from the Steering Committee, based on the needs identified in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). Weekers and Gumbs will travel to Washington D.C. on June 12 to meet World Bank representative Tahseen Sayed to discuss objectives related to the first two tranches of funding. In photo: Tour of water and electricity company GEBE, led by company CEO Kenrick Chittick.
