Dear Mr. Mercelina,
It is with some hesitancy that this letter is penned to you. The hesitation arises from the fact that officially you have not presented your findings, as formator to the Governor. Being a person of faith, I believe this letter is well addressed.
As a medical professional you can agree that the patient, country St. Maarten, is very sick. You are called in the capacity of PM to be eclectic and bring that experience and insight to the fold in carrying out that daunting responsibility of PM. That responsibility in good times is heavy on its own but going by the rumors surrounding the state of the country St. Maarten, adds some additional weight to it all. Of course, you are not in this alone but the courage and strength that is needed to turn this ship called Country St. Maarten in a different direction will be immense.
Your government will be presenting a governing accord for the next four years. For this accord to be evaluated in hindsight in time to come, a baseline study will have to be conducted on the stake of affairs in all of the Ministries. This baseline study should give a clear picture of all future commitments and existing liabilities entered into by the now defunct coalition. This exercise will give a clear indication of where you are starting from, though government is a continuum.
Where needed some commitments will have to be annulled or renegotiated, liabilities should also be evaluated to ascertain their properness. Your biggest challenges will lie in the straightening out and up of all of the Government-owned companies, though on a ministerial level, though they all have different shareholder representatives. The purpose of these companies has to be revisited.
It is very clear from the many questions and allegations that surround the airport, GEBE, TelEm, the Harbor, etc., begs for a professional, transparent, integrity approach that is rooted in the principles of good governance. From this we clearly see that the Integrity Ordinance has failed. The present lines separating the judiciary, the legislative and executive branched of our democracy as we experience them, are not based on the Social Contract. Ethics, morality, decency and respect have been abandoned.
The lessons learned from the Enron debacle, how have those insights and best practices been enforced through our Corporate Governance Code? Ignorance is no excuse for the law. The fact that our Corporate Governance Code and all of the articles of incorporation regarding these Government-owned companies are more than 15 years old is no excuse to continue down the path followed to date. Government-owned companies are run by the individual management teams like those members are owners and not employees. The proper balance in Government-owned companies must be restored. The present Supervisory Board of Directors will have to be dissolved and new ones appointed with the right focus.
The Netherlands made funds available after the passage of Hurricane Irma for reconstruction via the World Bank. There is money at the World Bank and using some of those funds to have forensic audits carried out in the Government-owned companies would not be a bad idea. The people want to know, the people need to know. I believe this will give country St. Maarten internationally more standing and respect.
Many years ago, there were many accounting firms doing business in St. Maarten. There are none left today. Some were bought out, others closed up shop because of shady dealing. That says a lot about our ability as a country to perform checks and balances on our economy and thus taxes owed. The country has become a free-for-all. In this regard Government is understaffed, which is expressed through the practice of not hiring civil servants but employing workers via employment agencies, which in turn is undermining the existence of the St. Maarten Pension Fund.
The envisioned forensic audit should be carried out by a company that is not locally connected. It is a grave injustice and conflict of interest to have such a forensic audit done by a local company of which there is none. Further to that, the Government-owned company that is to be audited should not be the one paying for the audit upfront and therefore be able to influence the process and in the end, the final results. The operative word here is independence. The individual Government-owned company can be billed later.
There are rumors that some management-team members in Government-owned companies are operating daily in a conflicting environment. Some management-team members have companies working in the same Government-owned companies. Some management-team members are using info that is the property of that Government-owned company to build databases which are then used by third parties to do data-mining for a fee. Selling company info is a cause for immediate dismissal.
The allegations go so far as to suggest that these management members are setting themselves up for when that Government-owned company is financially ruined. A forensic audit will give insights into financial mismanagement and liabilities for these people once those results are presented to COM. Those results have to be presented because the general interest should prevail. And while we are at it, does screening take place for the many persons working in our critical structures?
TelEm is a different ball game. Money was borrowed to install a fiber-to-the-home project. One would think that those funds would be enough to finance the entire project. Apparently, the funds are exhausted, and the project is incomplete. Why were Mer BV services terminated and replaced by KN Net? The termination of Mer BV, not counting the legal cost for the many court cases in the Netherlands and locally, has to be added on to the 3.7-million-dollars verdict, which it is rumored amounts to more than $6 million. What does this say about the competencies within TelEm? The man on the street can see that there is a clear lack of accountability and respect for the people’s patrimony.
The hospital and the airport projects are more complicated and of a draining nature. There seems to be an algorithm at play that employs Goossen’s law. We are in need of a bigger hospital and a more efficient airport. Leave the island and try coming back on a Thursday or Saturday and experience it for yourself. What message is that sending to tourist? That law states that during construction there is an ideal mix of personnel and material and a shortage in any of those will lead to delays and the overruns. How many times were there overruns reported at the airport and the hospital? Was the government ever able to analyze the cause of these overruns?
It is rumored that the same forces that keep these projects moving at a snail’s pace are the same forces at work at TelEm. TelEm has to be run financially into the ground so that those forces earn a hefty payday and something new can emerge from the ashes. A new privately owned entity. Check out the envisioned downsizing. In time to come equipment, licenses, etc. will then be up for sale.
As stated before, by all means, those forensic audit reports should be presented to the Prosecutor if evidence surfaces of financial mismanagement, self-enrichment, conflict of interest, collusion, abuse of position, etc. Disgorgement should follow. There is case-law on this.
Name known to editor.
