Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
PHILIPSBURG/THE HAGUE--The Committee for Financial Supervision CFT has advised the Dutch Kingdom Council of Ministers to issue an instruction to the St. Maarten Government. That instruction is said to only cover the need for government to reach an agreement on the settling of arrears to the social funds.
CFT informed Parliament Chairman Dr. Lloyd Richardson of its advice to the Kingdom Council of Ministers in a letter dated July 3.
This advice for a targeted instruction comes as no surprise as CFT Chairman Age Bakker had announced in a June 25 press conference in St. Maarten that such was under consideration.
Government has arrears to the Social and Health Insurance SZV and General Pension Fund APS amounting to some NAf. 189 million, down from a disputed NAf. 295 million.
Government has missed the May 30 deadline set by CFT to settle its arrears with SZV and APS.
An agreement was said to be "close" between the social funds and government at the time of the press conference. However, since then there has been no public information from the Marcel Gumbs Cabinet whether or not the agreement was signed off on, Bakker had expressed hopes in June that Government can settle its arrears by the end of August.
Government was sent a letter on the evening of June 25 from CFT outlining what must be done to clear up the matter and avoid the possibility of a targeted instruction. Government was given a week to respond to the recommendations. The July 3 letter from the CFT to the Kingdom Council of Ministers signalled the end of that one-week period.
If the request for the targeted advice is rendered by the CFT to the Kingdom Council, it will be the third time an instruction has been formulated for St. Maarten. The two previous advices were given by CFT, but were never implemented, because the situation they sought to regulate was remedied by St. Maarten by the time the Kingdom Council was ready to issue the instructions.
