There is some positive news for the people of St. Eustatius and Saba in today’s edition. They had not received The Daily Herald since it was first published after the passage of Hurricane Irma on Friday, September 22, due to flight complications, but temporary PDF files have now been created on our website that they can freely access to read the entire paper.
Winair was forced to operate out of St. Kitts (see related story), but is in the process of reintroducing limited service to Saba and Statia, as well as St. Barths and Antigua. The local carrier hopes to get the appropriate authorisation for such by Sunday.
But perhaps even more important for (former) public sector employees and their families is that a second cut in the pensions planned for April 2018 could be off. It appears the coverage degree of the Caribbean Netherlands Pension Fund PCN has improved to the extent that this austerity measure may no longer be necessary.
Especially with both islands already facing considerable material but also economic damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the prospect of these pensioners losing yet another 12 per cent of their income following this year’s reduction by 3.5 per cent was not exactly a pleasant one.
It’s therefore good to know as well that Social Affairs and Labour SZW received instructions to be “royal” in awarding special social assistance following the impact of two consecutive major hurricanes.
In addition, a solution is being worked on for (retired) teachers of Gwendoline van Putten School to close the gap in their pensions. Because the latter resulted from mistakes made during the time of the – no longer existent – Netherlands Antilles Pension Fund APNA and through no fault of their own, that’s obviously the right thing to do.
