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Urgent Plenary session of the House about Dissolution of Parliament set for October 28

>PHILIPSBURG:----  The House of Parliament will meet in an urgent plenary session on October 28 to discuss the dissolution of Parliament.

The public Plenary Session is set for Wednesday, at 10.00am in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelmina Straat #1 in Philipsburg.
The agenda point is the decision of the Council of Ministers to dissolve Parliament.

This meeting of the House was requested by the National Alliance Faction Members of Parliament (MPs) G.C Read more

Marcel Gumbs Cabinet Tenders Resignation On Wednesday

St. Maarten- The Council of Ministers will meet this coming Wednesday with Governor Drs. Eugene Holiday at the Governor’s Cabinet to tender its resignation.

At this meeting all ministers will make their positions available and the national decree to dissolve parliament will be signed by the governor and countersigned by Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs, the prime minister’s cabinet states in a press release last night Read more

Serious Measures Ahead To Generate More Revenue

Draft 2016 budget stands at 485 million guilders

St. Maarten – “We have tremendous challenges and we need to take serious measures to increase income and to cut costs,” Finance Minister Martin Hassink said earlier this week.

How tremendous those challenges are appears from the cold figures. The budgets the seven ministers of the Gumbs cabinet submitted for 2016 totaled 510 million guilders. That number has been brought down to 85 million, and that is the budget the Council of Ministers approved this week,

Minister Hassink pointed out that the expected income for 2015 is 440 million guilders and that begs the question how the country will bring revenue to the 485 million level next year.

Personnel costs exceed 200 million guilders next year Read more

Labor Minister Boasman Indexes Minimum Wage

St. Maarten – The indexing of the minimum wage will go into effect in January 2016 according Minister of Labor Raphael Boasman said this week. Minimum wage earners will get 8 more cents on top of their current hourly wage of 8.75 and receive 8.83 guilders per hour. Last year, former Minister Cornelius de Weever also indexed the minimum wage Read more

Entrepreneurs Get Ready For Entrepreneurship Week 721, International Speakers To Empower Students And Entrepreneurs In November

Great Bay, St. Maarten – Inspired by the Global Entrepreneurship Week, INFOBIZZ is hosting its very first Entrepreneurship Week 721 from November 16-21, 2015.

This week is aimed at helping entrepreneurs to reach new levels of success in their businesses and lives. International entrepreneurs from the US, Canada, and The Netherlands will be on St. Maarten sharing dynamic cutting-edge information to transform businesses alongside local experts.

INFOBIZZ is specifically designed at developing successful entrepreneurs and has reached approximately 700 entrepreneurs in the past 2 years predominantly through it premier networking activity, the POWER HOUR Read more

Gumbs cabinet expected to submit their resignation on Wednesday next week.

>PHILIPSBURG:--- Reliable information reaching SMN News states that the ousted Prime Minister of St. Maarten Marcel Gumbs will be taking in the resignation of his cabinet latest Wednesday next week.
It is not yet known why the Prime Minister and the other Ministers making up his cabinet choose to stay a few more days in office after being notified of the Governor’s final decision on Wednesday.
SMN News could not reach Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs on Friday for a confirmation on whether or not he will submit the resignation of his cabinet or if he will wait for the police to knock on the doors of the Ministers to remove them from office forcefully.
Former Minister of Constitutional Affairs and also former Minister of Justice Roland Duncan told SMN News that the Gumbs cabinet has committed a criminal act and they can be held accountable for their actions Read more

Rotary Spelling Bee Semi - Finals On Sunday

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten - The Scotiabank Bright Future Rotary-Rotaract Spelling Bee 2015 qualification round was held on October 18th at the Belair Community Center.

Eleven schools, including two from Anguilla, participated with 26 students in this event.

In the qualification round, students were asked to write a total of 30 words. The top ten students with the most correct words, move on to the semi-finals.

This year there was a three-way tie for 10th place. Those three students were given five additional words as a tiebreaker to determine the 10 finalist.

The finalists are:

St Read more

Job Fair At Nipa Opens Tomorrow At 10Am – Ricardo Perez: “This Event Will Show Real Unemployment Data”

Ricardo Perez. Photo contributed

St. Maarten – The job fair the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association hosts at the National Institute of Professional advancement (Nipa) in Cay Hill tomorrow in partnership with the labor department’s Start Here Campaign will be the true measure of unemployment on the island, says Ricardo Perez, manager of the Oyster Bay Beach Resort and Executive Board Director of the SHTA.

“The private sector cannot find people, let alone qualified ones,” Perez says in his office at the Oyster Bay Beach Resort Read more

French St. Martin: Protest Against Plan Local D’Urbanisme (Plu) Yields Results

A roadblock in St. James. Photo Today / Leo Brown

Arnell: “We’ll go back to the drawing board”

MARIGOT, St. Martin — The Second Vice President of the Collectivité Guillaume Arnell has agreed to revisit the Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU) after a meeting with the different social organizations and communities at the Hotel de la Collectivité on Thursday evening Read more

style="text-align: center;">Minister Claret Connor still Director of the Chamber of Commerce – Is this a conflict of interest?

PHILIPSBURG:--- The ousted Minister of VROMI Claret Connor is hell bent on getting certain things done before he is forced out of office Read more

>Harbour View:--- On October 22, 2015, His Excellency the Governor of Sint Maarten, drs. E.B. Holiday, requested Mr. William V. Marlin to form a new government as formateur.
As was communicated earlier, the Governor received a letter on September 30, 2015, from three members of Parliament, Mr. F. Richardson, Mr. S. Matser and Mr. M. Lake, in which they informed the Governor that they withdrew their support from the present coalition government. Subsequently the Governor was informed that the Parliament of Sint Maarten passed a motion of no-confidence against the current cabinet of ministers Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:---- The new coalition in parliament or the governor of St. Maarten should seriously consider filing a criminal complaint against the ministers based on the "ley Suzy" law says former Minister of Constitutional Affairs and former Minister of Justice Roland Duncan.
Duncan said this is an article of the Criminal Code that states if a Minister deliberately acts or omits against better knowledge he/she is acting criminally Read more

>POINTE BLANCHE:---– Port St. Maarten Management took a number of measures as a pro-active approach to ensure that the approximately 10,000 cruise passengers in town today-Thursday, enjoyed their stay on the island without any discomfort. The vessels in port today were: Celebrity Summit, Arcadia, Eurodam and Freedom of the Seas.
The action was prompted due to a planned demonstration in Marigot with possible road blocks on the French side of the island.
A number of tours were planned for the French side, and due to the aforementioned, alternative options had to be implemented, and cruise passengers spent most of their time in the Philipsburg area which may have led to additional traffic congestion.
There was also extra entertainment at the cruise port for the visitors to enjoy Read more

>MARIGOT:--- Residents, business owners, school children and visitors to the island were left in a state of disarray on Thursday when they found themselves trapped on the French side of the island. During the morning hours’ protestors and the 15 member committee members that are protesting the PLU law that is to be implemented on St. Martin blocked all entrances leading to Marigot.
The committee members are demanding that elected officials scrap the current PLU law and start over, but first they must properly inform the community of St Read more

Climate Change And The Caribbean

PORT OD SPAIN, Trinidad - This debate surrounding our climate has polarized the world into two different groups for a long time; some theorists maintain that an intrinsic characteristic of climate is that it changes while a large percent of others support the theory that global warming is anthropogenic or caused by human action.

There is however, scientific consensus that the Earth's climate system is warming, with average temperature rising somewhere between 0.4 and 0.8°C over the past 100 years Read more

Constitutional Advice Does Not Impress Prime Minister

“The governor cannot tell me what to do”

St. Maarten – Based on the advice he received from a panel of three judges Governor Drs. Eugène Holiday confirmed yesterday in a press release that he will sign the national decree to dissolve parliament as soon as the members of the Council of Ministers make their positions available. “In that case he can wait for a very long time,” Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs told this newspaper last night Read more

Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs: “I Will Not Back Down”

Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs (left) makes his position perfectly clear while Ministers Hassink, Sams and Connor look on. Photo Today / Andrew Dick

St. Maarten – “I will not back down,” Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs told this newspaper yesterday afternoon while he was walking back to the government building, where earlier yesterday he shed his light once more on the constitutional crisis that holds the country in a deadly embrace.

Professor Arjen van Rijn repeated yesterday in the Antilliaans Dagblad his firm position on the constitutional crisis: when the parliament hits, the cabinet is allowed to hit back Read more

“Criminal Organizations Are Killing Each Other”

Justice Minister Dennis Richardson about rising crime:

St. Maarten – The recent hike in crime can be attributed to criminal organizations fighting over territory and killing each other, Minister of Justice Dennis Richardson said at the Council of Ministers press briefing yesterday. The minister has taken notice of the crime situation and would rather focus on crime prevention efforts then contributing more money to capturing and locking up criminals. In a meeting with the police on Monday, the minister was informed that in 2014 there were ten murders while this year there are seven thus far Read more

style="text-align: center;">The people of St. Maarten needs to prepare for a long haul with the current political crisis the island has been in since September 30th 2015

PHILIPSBURG:--- Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs told reporters that St. Maarten is not in a political crisis but instead it is in a constitutional crisis. Gumbs said his cabinet already sent a letter to the Governor of St Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:--- Member of Parliament Cornelius de Weever spoke out on Wednesday for the first time since he left the Democratic Party to form a government with the UPP political party in 2014 Read more

>PHILIPSBURG:--- The seven members making up the Gumbs cabinet on St. Maarten showed up at a press conference on Wednesday where they each laid out the projects they have been working on since taking office in December 2014. Minister Claret Connor spoke of the road patches, and road repairs that will soon begin while he also shed light on the sea water that is pumped from the sea into the Great Salt Pond.
Minister of Finance Maarten Hassink spoke of the 2016 budget he presented to the Council of Ministers and also sent to the CFT Read more

Council Of Ministers Gives Status Update, Pm Addresses Constitutional Issue

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten - The Council of Ministers of St. Maarten held a press conference Wednesday morning in which they outlined the various plans which they had for implementation as well as a status report of ongoing matters.

VROMI

Minister of VROMI the Honorable Claret Conner stated on Wednesday that the street repair program is now in progress. The Minister stated that more extensive work will be done next year when the season is over. He also stated that most of the work will be done at night.

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Minister Ernest Sams who is responsible for Economic Affairs gave an outline Wednesday of the islands Economic Development plan Read more

“Principles And Values” Directed Maurice Lake’S Decision

Ex-Vromi Minister Maurice Lake.

St. Maarten – In a statement that runs almost 2,000 words, now independent MP Maurice Lake has defended himself against accusations by United People’s party leader Theo Heyliger that “power, position and ministry and others have manipulated him to break the government for self-interest.”

Lake says that he has known Heyliger for 25 years as a friend and for 15 years as his advisor.

“I have three Master’s Degrees and work hard for my family for everything I got in life and never asked Theo Heyliger for nothing in life Read more

Budget 250,000 Guilders For St. Maarten Day Celebrations

The St. Maarten Day committee at the A.C Legislative hall. Photo Today / Andrew Dick

St. Maarten – The committee in charge of organizing the November 11 St. Maarten Day celebrations has been working for the past months to organize and execute a well thought out program starting November 8. Minister of Culture Rita Bourne-Gumbs says this year the focus is on the people being proud of the heritage the island has to offer. “The community needs to be reminded of the rich culture the island has and we hope to depict this at this year’s festivities,” said the minister.

The highlight of the day will be a cultural parade consisting of 30 groups according to committee member Urmain Dormoy Read more