I have been coming to St. Maarten yearly since 1998 and love the Island.
I now spend the winter here at my timeshare and although I’d like to think of myself as one of the “locals”, I’m technically still a “tourist”. As such, I was disappointed to read that the Inspectorate of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) is changing its name to Inspectorate of Economic and Transport Affairs (IETA). I can only assume that dropping “Tourism” from the name indicates it is no longer a priority for them.
Hmmm… Seems odd since according to The World Bank, “Sint Maarten’s economy is mainly tourism dependent. Restaurants, hotels, and other tourism-related sectors account for about 45 per cent of the country’s GDP. Tourism accounts for 73 per cent of foreign exchange income, creating employment for approximately one-third of the employed population”.
The Inspectorate also designed a new logo. In the announcement made in The Daily Herald (March 22-23 edition) they said that in addition to the new logo the said government web page, email addresses and departmental email address will be updated accordingly. IETA also said that “it is committed to elevating transparency, accountability and collaboration at the core of its operations”.
How about this for a start to your “transparency” – How much is all this going to cost the taxpayers? Perhaps rather that spending the money on this nonsense, you could use the money to fix the potholes and paint the speed bumps (unless that would cut into the repair shops business). And if doing that doesn’t seem grandiose enough, finish fixing the airport.
Marc N. Burton
Minneapolis, Minnesota
