The pledging conference for victims of this year’s major Atlantic hurricanes attended by, among others, former US President Bill Clinton appears to have been a success. Commitments for about US $1.35 billion in rebuilding aid and another $1 billion in loans and debt forgiveness were made.
Exactly how this money is to be spent will now be decided by the Caribbean Community Caricom and the United Nations (UN), a process that could take some time. The Netherlands also promised US $702 million, although it wasn’t immediately clear how this relates to the 550 million euros already made available for St. Maarten plus another 67 million euros for Statia and Saba.
In any case, much-needed funding for the hard-hit region is becoming reality and hopefully St. Maarten too will be able to benefit. Nowhere is it written in stone that the Dutch side as a non-independent country can only accept financial support from its former coloniser and the European Union (EU) recently confirmed this point of view.
The presence of Justice Minister Rafael Boasman at the pledging conference in New York was therefore worthwhile. There should be no fear either of jeopardising assistance from the Dutch Government, which undoubtedly favours the island helping itself where possible.
The latter is also important due to indications it may not be until the end of May that the reconstruction package monies from the Netherlands start being released. To be clear, the European part of the kingdom’s post-Irma recovery aid has never stopped, as several examples in today’s paper again show.
With its tourism economy way down for at least a year, the destination could frankly use whatever responsible help it can get. Under the current circumstances common sense would certainly seem to dictate keeping all options open.
