State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops confirms in today’s paper what was already clear: Parliament’s approval of the National Ordinance to establish an Integrity Chamber is an important step in St. Maarten’s recovery process.
In the end nine of the 12 elected representatives present voted in favour of the draft legislation, including opposition member Rodolphe Samuel (NA). This means it was in fact passed with a three-fourths majority.
A work conference with top Dutch officials in charge of the reconstruction effort and representatives of the World Bank has been scheduled for today, Friday, to start talking about how the 550 million euros in financial assistance made available by the Netherlands will be spent to get the island back on its feet again. It is expected that actual funding realistically won’t be disbursed until the second quarter of 2018.
The latter is also a reason for the local government to try to provide short-term relief such as with the roof-repair project in the meantime. The unemployment allowances and medical coverage for those without health insurance have been doubled, while there are plans to extend the food voucher programme.
Of course, The Hague having agreed to cover the unforeseen 2017 budget deficit resulting from the impact of Hurricane Irma up to an amount of about 42 million euros is very helpful in that regard. With the destination having lost most of its hotel rooms and timeshare units, the island’s tourism economy will remain in a severe crisis for at least the coming year.
Hospitality sector employees have been and continue losing jobs. Some of them were still getting paid, but most of that will end by next month.
The idea of a fund to provide low-interest loans for entrepreneurs inciting them to quickly rebuild therefore certainly seems worthwhile exploring. After all, affordable capital is obviously a huge factor when investing.
