THE HAGUE--During the Kingdom Council of Ministers meeting last Friday, St. Maarten gave its formal consent to the proposal of the Consensus Kingdom Law on the Caribbean Development and Reform Entity COHO and to join the process for the advice on the law proposal at the Council of State of the Kingdom.
Dutch State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops stated this in a letter that he sent to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament with regard to the accord for the third tranche of liquidity support for St. Maarten, which was signed on Tuesday (see related story).
St. Maarten also gave its consent during the Kingdom Council of Ministers meeting of December 18 to the adaptation of the Kingdom Law on Financial Supervision and the final approval of the retroactive implementation of the conditions of the second tranche of liquidity support in the St. Maarten Parliament.
Also, St. Maarten gave its consent to provide maximum transparency and to honour all requests of the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT with regard to providing information of the government entities.
According to Knops, St. Maarten’s consent freed the way for the Kingdom Council of Ministers to authorise him to move forward with the issuing of a third tranche of liquidity support for an amount of NAf. 61.2 million for the period July 1-December 31, 2020. “This amount will be transferred as soon as possible after the signing of the mutual regulation on December 22.”
Also issued will be an advance of NAf. 8.7 million to help St. Maarten cover its expenditures of the first six weeks of 2021. This is an advance on the fourth tranche of liquidity support, based on the advice of the CFT which calculated that St. Maarten would have a liquidity shortage of NAf. 8.7 million in the first six weeks of next year.
Decision-taking on the fourth tranche of liquidity support for St. Maarten, but also for Aruba and Curaçao, is expected by the Kingdom Council of Ministers on February 12. Aruba will receive a similar advance, but for a much higher amount: 71 million Aruba florins (38.8 million euros). Curaçao was found to have sufficient liquidity to cover the first six weeks of 2021.
The Kingdom Council of Ministers last Friday further decided to extend the bullet loan 2010-2020 of NAf. 49.9 million, whereby the loan will be converted into a new, interest-free one with a duration of 15 years, of which the first three years don’t have to be repaid.
As a result of the December 22 political accord, the Dutch government will allocate 30 million euros to construct a new St. Maarten prison and to make structural improvements to the existing detention facilities.
The Dutch government will further make a maximum of 15 million euros available to execute the measures in the country package which are aimed at strengthening financial management and the modernisation of the Tax Office.
For the strengthening of St. Maarten’s state of law, an amount of 2.7 million euros will become available. These funds will be used for the further support of the Royal Dutch Marechaussee and the Customs in strengthening border control.
In his five-page letter, State Secretary Knops also addressed the written questions that were posed by Member of Parliament (MP) Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) last week with regard to the comparison between the state secretary and Pablo Escobar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler.
Knops stated that especially the comparison with Hitler was an “absolute low,” but that in the meantime Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs had assured him by letter that these statements were not supported by her government.
“Naturally, I understand the concerns of MP Van Raak about the upcoming cooperation trajectory. The experiences during the reconstruction have shown that a political accord with St. Maarten is no guarantee for a smooth cooperation. However, this should not deter from the end result,” stated Knops.
The state secretary pointed out that a majority of the St. Maarten Parliament expressed explicit support for an agreement with the Netherlands. This support was confirmed by the president of Parliament.
“As country within the kingdom, St. Maarten deserves the benefit of the doubt. The Netherlands will provide assistance in these times of crisis, as long as St. Maarten sticks to the agreements that were made,” said Knops, who emphasised that the whole exercise of reforms in the public sector and the strengthening of St. Maarten’s resilience served to make things better for the population.
