It turns out the upcoming St. Maarten Heineken Regatta will be held without the subsidy it was to receive for 2015. A press release says the long-awaited payment of NAf. 300,000 won’t take place
despite promises as recent as January 29 from the Tourist Office and multiple Ministers of Tourism that the backdated funding would be received before this year’s edition.
It’s yet another blow to the popular four-day sailing and entertainment extravaganza that brings a lot of visitors to the island and generates much international publicity for the destination. The subsidy already had been reduced from NAf. 375,000 in 2014, while only NAf. 270,000 is earmarked in the draft 2016 “shotgun” budget.
The organisers argue that after operating under Government’s guidelines for more than a decade and submitting financial statements as required, they were told recently that these needed to be audited based on convention from earlier years. However, four previous Ministers had assured them this stipulation had been waived.
The public has been promised a world-class event despite this setback, which nevertheless raises questions about continuity in Government. It also illustrates the problem with pledging financial assistance and then actually providing it only a year later.
St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation (SCDF) too has had to cope with the latter issue, which is one of the reasons there have been complaints in the past about people being paid late, etc. On top of that, the contribution it receives also was cut from NAf. 475,000 in 2014 to NAf. 350,000 in 2015 and NAf. 315,000 for this year.
To be sure, the current situation of receiving subsidies a year after they have been granted can’t really be considered normal. Audited statements are undoubtedly an important condition, but usually serve to see whether the money actually was spent correctly, rather than to decide on giving what is de facto already owed.
In other words, if something is not in order, that could have an impact on future subsidies, but withholding funds retroactively in this manner seems peculiar to say the least. The criteria for granting such must be made crystal clear from the beginning and everyone, especially Government, should learn to simply pay their bills on time.
