SXMElections.com

Opinion: Transparency

Opposition politics is one part criticism and one part coming up with better ideas than the government has to offer. We’re not into politics for dummies, but we do wonder at times about the way our politicians are going about their business.

We’re living in a time where integrity and transparency are on everybody’s mind. For as long as we remember, politicians have opted to speak in veiled terms about any subject they touch – in the former Island Council, in parliament and also during press conferences.

That’s what we’d call old-school politics Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Court Exonerates Tourist Bureau Marketing Director Edward Dest 

Judge: “You do not deserve punishment”

St. Maarten – The expression ‘mixed feelings’ probably describes best what Edward Dest must have experienced when the Court in First Instance declared him guilty of embezzlement yesterday and heard Judge Maria Paulides tell him that he does not deserve punishment for a trial that has been hanging over his head for almost five years.

The court sentenced Dest to a symbolic one-day conditional prison sentence with one day of probation Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Mp Silveria Jacobs Becomes New Na-Leader Next Year

St. Maarten – The leadership of the National alliance will transfer in 2016 from MP William Marlin to MP Silveria Jacobs, current party leader Marlin said yesterday in answer to a question from this newspaper Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Editorial: Creating Jobs

Members of Parliament love talking about creating jobs for the people. The latest cry is coming from MP Maurice Lake, the former Minister of Vromi, who urges the government to create work for local contractors.

It sounds sympathetic – no question about it – but when governments create work they are most likely whipping up jobs out of thin air that do not really exist Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Marlin-Romeo Calls For Establishment Of Consumer Protection Agency

St. Maarten —The time has come for the establishment of a Consumer Protection Agency locally, independent MP Leona Marlin-Romeo opined yesterday, pointing out that consumer protection laws exists locally but there is no body to execute such laws.

The MP noted that statistics continue to show that the island is still considered and favoured as the duty free shopping hub of the Caribbean Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Up Mp Lake Calls On Up Lead Government To Make Job Creation A Priority

St. Maarten –  “It is high time that Government and Parliament start empowering our local people to be tops where it concerns jobs and other relevant areas in the country,” UP MP and former Vromi Minister Maurice Lake said yesterday while contending that since his tenure as Vromi Minister not much is happening within the districts.

The UP MP has issued a call to the UP lead government to make use of local contractors in the various districts when it comes to district community improvement Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Minister Connor Stresses Importance Of Tourism To Mac 3Rd Graders

St. Maarten – Minister of TEATT Claret Connor visited the Methodist Agogic Center (MAC), St. John’s Campus and spoke to the 3rd grade students of campus 1 & 2 about tourism and how it affects their lives.

The visit is in keeping with the Ministry’s vision to create greater awareness and understanding about the industry and the importance to the economy and by extension, the citizens of this country Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Na Mp Pantophlet Seeks Clarity On Internal Control Department

St. Maarten – Member of Parliament George Pantophlet disclosed yesterday that he will be submitting some questions to Minister of Finance Martin Hassink regarding the setting up of an internal control department. Pantophlet also plans to request a copy of an agreement signed between the SOAB and government. “This agreement apparently has in it that the SOAB would set up the internal control department within 2 years, write the internal control process and also train the employees Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Public Transport Permits Under The Microscope

MP Wescot-Williams sends questions to Minister Connor

St. Maarten – The closed-door committee meeting of last Tuesday about bus and taxi permits ended prematurely, because Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication Minister Claret Connor asked committee members to submit their questions about this issue in writing.

Connor said that he has decided to keep the moratorium for public transportation permits in place Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Ava Airways Representatives Meet With St. Maarten Civil Aviation

GREATBAY –  “St. Maarten needs airlift. The island cannot be dependent upon North American traffic anymore…” This is according to Olivier Arrindell, Chairman of AVA Airways.

Recently  Arrindell and The President of AVA Airways Giovanni Atalita presented AVA Airways plans to the Ministry of Transportation, Civil Aviation and Economic Development, “One of our main objectives is to learn from the past and to propose a bold new direction for commercial aviation in St. Maarten Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Opinion: One-Way Ticket

So this is how things work in Dutch politics: a minister (Ivo Opstelten) gives the parliament incorrect information and after some toing and froing he steps down. His State Secretary Fred Teeven, who was up to his eyeballs in the deal about which Opstelten gave incorrect information, also left office.

Did these politicians commit a crime? Is there an irrevocable criminal conviction?

No. None of that.

And what was it all about? An issue that played fifteen years ago, when Teeven was a public prosecutor Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

First Meeting Ad Hoc Committee Integrity: Code Of Conduct Suddenly A Priority For Parliamentarians

St. Maarten – Thirteen years after former Lt. governor Franklyn Richards proposed it for the first time to the Island Council, the ad hoc committee Integrity of parliament met yesterday and named establishing a Code of Conduct for parliament a priority.

“I believe it is a priority for parliament to have a Code of Conduct,” committee-chairman Cornelius de Weever said.

The committee’s meeting was off to what felt like a reluctant start – the objective of this first meeting being to set the perimeters for the committee’s activities and responsibilities Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Smcu Calls For Deportation Of Telem’S  “Illegal Workers”

St. Maarten – The deportation of the Surinamese workers brought in by TelEm to work on the pilot fiber to the home project is being demanded by the St. Maarten Communications Union, which also wants the Immigration Department to stamp the passports of these workers to forbid them from re-entering the island for five years.

Following an outcry from the union last week regarding these same workers, TelEm explained that the workers were brought in on an emergency and temporary basis to assist with a backlog of work and to do the pilot fiber to the home project Read more

Upgrade Dutch Quarter Delayed, Not Forgotten

European subsidy-millions remain available until December 5

St. Maarten – What happened to the European funds St. Maarten supposedly received for the upgrading of Dutch Quarter? Former Vromi-Minister William Marlin announced at a “simply yet significant signing ceremony” on the De Weever property on June 25, 2012 that the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) had committed €4.75 million ($6.1 million) to the project and the government put up an additional 1,73 million ($2.25 million) Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Freedom Salsa Delivered To 18 Primary Schools

St. Maarten – The book delivering festivities at the Sint Maarten primary schools has come to an end. Between January and the first week of March the Beyond Writing Foundation has visited eighteen primary schools to present and delivered boxes containing 25 copies of the book Freedom Salsa.

The festivity was organized by school representatives together with the project manager of BWF, Ingrid Holaman.  Each school put another accent to the program Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Mp Tamara Leonard Calls On Women To Make It Happen

St. Maarten – United People’s party MP Tamara Leonard says the theme of International Women’s Day “Make It Happen” is a call to women on St. Maarten and all over the world to make more happen in their communities and a call to all women to strive for even more Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Large Field For Soca Rumble

St. Maarten – The Soca Rumble “Battle of the Best” on April 25 will feature 24 soloists and three groups or bands that will be competing in Power Soca and Groovy Soca. The winner of each section takes home $10,000.

The deadline for participants to submit their music via email is Friday. “We are trying to raise the level of Soca music. St. Maarten by now should be included in the conversation of great Soca music in the Caribbean. We have some talented artists. We ho Read more

Scholar Julio Romney; “St. Maarten Is Not A Country”

GREAT BAY – “Sint Maarten is not a country.” That statement from political scientist Julio Romney during the presentation of his book St. Maarten: Our Constituent State Constituent Framework resulted in a heated debate with Acting Governor Reynold Groeneveldt, who strongly disagreed. Romney however, stuck to his position: “For Pete’s sake, you cannot even determine your own budget,” he said, slightly exasperated.

Romney’s 128-page book about St. Maarten’s governing system dives deeper into what Romney calls incorrect political terms, like ‘Country Sint Maarten,’ ‘dualism’ and ‘separation of powers.’

According to Romney – a scholar of comparative government and politics – these terms are “conceptually taken out of context.” His explanation in the book: “St Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Jose Lake: St. Maarten Is Ready For Independence At Next Referendum

GREATBAY—St. Maarten is anticipated to take the leap to being an independent country within the next five years, president of the Independence for St. Martin Foundation Jose Lake said in a press conference yesterday.

“We have seen a great increase in the interest in independence and it’s a much larger group that is supporting independence. We are at a stage where it will become necessary within short for us to lobby the parliament to get them to move to a new referendum within another year or two,” Lake said Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Romney’S Draft Electoral Ordinance Prohibits Going Independent

St. Maarten – Political analyst Julio Romney presented on Wednesday evening his proposal for electoral reform in the form of a draft electoral reconciliation ordinance. The draft contains two key differences with the current system. One is the way seats are distributed among the parties that contest the elections; the other is a ban for Members of Parliament to declare themselves independent.

Romney supports the D’Hondt system for seat distribution. In this system, the numbers of votes won by each party are divided by a series of increasing denominators – from 1 until as high as necessary to arrive at a result.

Using this method, the results of the 2014 elections would have been exactly the same in terms of seat distribution Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

American University Tax Deal: Minister Authorized To Lift Confidentiality-Rule

St. Maarten – Repeated attempts by National Alliance MP Christopher Emmanuel to get information about the tax-deal with the former owners of the American University in Cupecoy have so far stranded on Finance Minister Maarten Hassink’s refusal to make information about individual tax payers public, citing confidentiality Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Telecommunication Union Accuses Telem Of Hiring Illegals:  Calls For Resignation Of The Board

St. Maarten – A vote of no confidence in the board of TelEm and the resignation of Raphael Boasman as the head of that board because of a conflict of interest, were among issues cited by the St. Maarten Telecommunication Union during a press conference yesterday.

The union called the press conference to air some of their grievances in the court of public opinion after having received no satisfaction from management and board of TelEm to their issues, chief among which is the employment of a Surinamese company to perform paid employment that the union feels can and should be done by local contractors Read more

Mp Wescot-Williams Keeps Focus On Healthy Lifestyle

St. Maarten -The U2 Can Move organization has planned a walkathon for Saturday, March 7th     towards their goal of a healthy life style for all. Former Prime Minister and Democratic Party MP Sarah Wescot-Williams, who has been one of the driving forces behind this project from its onset, yesterday reiterated her continued support for the different activities that are geared towards a healthy lifestyle for all.

The date for the walkathon has been chosen to coincide with International Women’s Day–  being commemorated under the theme Make it happen– which is annually celebrated on March 8th.

“Cognizant of the constraints many women face, especially where physical activity is concerned, I warmly endorse activities, business-sponsored or otherwise that offer women the opportunity to stay fit Read more

---

Candidates in this article:

Committee Puts Three Questions To Council Of State: Do Kingdom Instructions Violate Our Autonomy?

St. Maarten – On the day of the extended deadline, the permanent parliamentary committee for Kingdom Affairs and Inter-parliamentary Relations formulated three questions about the procedures around instructions by the Kingdom Council of Ministers to the governor. The questions will be added to those already formulated by the Dutch Second Chamber and sent for advice to the Council of State.

The instructions the governors of Aruba (about its 2014 budget) and of St. Maarten (about integrity-investigations and about the establishment of the Integrity Chamber) are still a hot topic in the autonomous Caribbean countries of the kingdom.

The questions the Second Chamber members have formulated are, in the opinion of the committee-members in St Read more

---

Candidates in this article: