Dear editor,
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought economies all over the world to a screeching halt. Planes are parked. Hotels, restaurants, car-rental companies and a myriad of other businesses are closed. Citizens as a result of decrees issued by government are forced to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus. The GDP of every country has suffered an enormous blow. Millions of jobs have evaporated and Tax income in general of governments has shrunk to a trickle.
How long will this continue? No one knows that for certain. What is known however, is that safely restarting the economy will be a long and painful process. Restarting too quickly is fraught with peril. Resurgence of the spread of the virus could put us back to square one and make all the sacrifice made and endured to date by everyone a total waste.
Restarting our economy unfortunately is also not completely in our hands. We have a tourist economy and depend on tourist dollars. As such we are totally dependent on tourists deciding to take a cruise or jumping on a plane with Sint Maarten as their destination. As long as Covid-19 hangs around the world and as long as there is no vaccine available to safely travel the prospect of tourists coming to our shores and populating our hotels and beaches, like before, is wishful thinking. It will take years to recuperate. Yes, you will get some tourists visits, but not enough to keep our heads above water.
People with healthy savings and companies with sound balance sheets prior to Covid-19 will be able to hold out for some time, but not forever. People without income or without healthy savings will be pauperized worse than before the virus struck. Companies that struggled to make ends meet before Covid-19 visited us, or companies suffering losses since hurricane Irma will be forced to close their doors permanently and expand the ranks of the unemployed. Crime will explode.
Government will not be able to meet its social responsibilities towards the needy, provide the needed health care for citizens, nor guarantee the safety and security of the populace. SZV will suffer substantial loss of income in the form of less premiums collected because of the closure of numerous businesses and a vast number of people without jobs. SZV will not be able to fund the operation of the hospital, nor pay for medication and critical health services.
This is the doomsday scenario we are confronted with. Government does not have the way nor the means to avoid this scenario without an astronomical injection of funds, more than you think, by the Netherlands. The Kingdom Council of Ministers has unfortunately embraced the advice issued by the CFT. The CFT however, has been shortsighted in its advice. The mission and expertise of the CFT is the supervision of the budgets of the countries in the Kingdom. The challenge we, as well as Curaçao and Aruba, are faced with goes way beyond the mission and expertise of the CFT. The misery that awaits us threatens our very survival and we have nowhere else to turn than to appeal to the responsibility and the decency of the government of the Kingdom.
Richard F. Gibson, Sr.
