Apart from the fatal shooting between inmates of the Pointe Blanche prison, which immediately raises the million-dollar question how the culprit got hold of a loaded gun, there was also some good news to report in today’s paper. The Tripartite Labour Committee signed a consensus document on how to address the six-month contracts issue and the Council of Ministers approved the draft 2017 budget.
To start with the former, the social partners want to tackle the abuse of such contracts and not ban them altogether, as they are in fact needed in a tourism economy of a seasonal nature. That they agreed on the approach is nice, but translation of what was called a “game-changer” into law will be the key, because it is said to involve the Civil Code.
Next year’s budget will be 12 million guilders more than the current NAf. 438 million “shotgun” version, which means the latter’s 10 per cent across-the-board cut in subsidies to social organisations doing work on behalf of the community can be reversed. That is a positive development, as long as the income is also there. After all, concern had been expressed over Government revenues collected especially during the early part of 2016, while the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT recently said they were “increasingly lagging behind” in the second quarter.
Nevertheless, that the draft budget was approved by the Cabinet before the September 1 official deadline for submitting it to Parliament is in principle commendable. Hopefully, it can go through the process, including scrutiny by the CFT, in time to be adopted and signed into law before the end of December.
Now wouldn’t that be a welcome first for Country St. Maarten?
