The proposal of One St. Maarten People Party (OSPP) to introduce garbage and environmental taxes (see related story) might not earn them a lot of votes, but can certainly be considered noteworthy. After all, very few of the parties campaigning for the September 30 parliamentary election have come up with concrete income-generating measures to help finance their many other plans.
One can hardly deny that the current system of collecting and processing waste on the Dutch side is far from ideal and needs fixing. Moreover, these kinds of levies are commonplace just about everywhere else, as dealing with trash in an ecologically responsible manner has become an increasingly expensive undertaking.
In addition to charging residents NAf. 25 and businesses NAf. 50 per month for their garbage, the plan is to have visitors pay US $20 (NAf. 36) due to the burden of their presence on nature. That is fairly reasonable for stay-over guests vacationing in St. Maarten a week or longer, but not so much regarding cruise passengers who are on the island less than a day.
Perhaps more important is that the funds are applied as indicated, in this case to clean up Great Salt Pond. When, for example, in the past proceeds from the dollar-a-day programme at local resorts intended for less fortunate children were used to fix roads, it did not go down well with everyone.
Nevertheless, OSPP at least presented straightforward ideas on how to raise revenues, including the already-long-talked-about tourist driver’s licence that is actually a no-brainer. Also, levying import duties or perhaps excise taxes on alcoholic beverages and tobacco products should not have the negative effect on shopping predicted by some, simply because they probably would still be considerably cheaper than elsewhere.
