St. Maarten’s new Minister of Finance Richard Gibson (left) met with Dutch Ministers Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations (centre) and Ard van der Steur of Security and Justice in The Hague on Tuesday.
THE HAGUE--St. Maarten’s new Finance Minister Richard Gibson set out to improve the strained relations between Philipsburg and The Hague on his first visit to the Netherlands earlier this week. His key message was mutual respect, due observation of existing laws and regulations, and no loss of face for anyone.
“I want to turn the page for more constructive relations,” he said.
The response to Gibson’s efforts to “change the dynamics of the present dialogue” between the two countries was positive. Concrete results were achieved in a meeting with Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Ard van der Steur and his colleague, Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk on Tuesday.
Van der Steur approved St. Maarten’s pending request to make specialists available for three months to assist the St. Maarten Police Force in combating the spate of robberies and shootings that have plagued the island these past months.
It also was agreed that a delegation of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations BZK, headed by Secretary-General (SG) Richard van Zwol, will be visiting St. Maarten in about three weeks for discussions.
“The objective is to eliminate those existing bottlenecks that prevent us from moving forward in a constructive manner and to seek solutions on the basis of mutual respect, due observance of existing laws and regulations and without loss of face for anyone,” said Gibson on Thursday. He said the approach had been welcomed by the two ministers and the SG.
Gibson committed to Plasterk, Van der Steur and Van Zwol that he would do “everything possible to fully comply” with the September 8, 2015, financial instruction of the Kingdom Council of Ministers and to produce a balanced budget for 2016 “in consultation with and to the full satisfaction” of the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT. Discussions will be held with the CFT Board in St. Maarten in the week of December 6.
Gibson confirmed that the summary proceedings before the Council of State to suspend the instruction of the Kingdom Government temporarily had been cancelled. He announced that the principal litigation before the Council of State to cancel the instruction altogether would be cancelled as well, in all probability.
Asked for a reason for this cancellation, Gibson said he intended to comply fully with the instruction and “as such, the case would become superfluous.” As for the instruction’s November 1 deadline, he said he would be sending a request to the Kingdom Council of Ministers shortly to have the deadline extended.
Achieving a balanced budget and complying with the other points of the instruction will be hard to do before the end of December, said Gibson. “I was thinking more of late January. I need to discuss that with the CFT. But I don’t think that anyone would have a problem with that,” he said, also aiming at the fact that he had just been appointed Minister of Finance last week.
Regarding the precarious financial situation, Gibson said it was important that Government not spend more than it collected. He said the tax compliance needed to go up, and higher taxes were not the answer. He said he was hopeful that the payment arrears would be eliminated by finalising the negotiations with the general pension fund APS and the Social and Health Insurance SZV.
Gibson was very positive about his first visit to the Netherlands. “Everything I set out to accomplish on this trip has been accomplished. It was time to turn the page and to change the dynamics of the present dialogue between St. Maarten and The Hague. Too much time and energy was being spent on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean on negative and unproductive issues without any concrete results,” he said.
“Who is to be blamed for the existing irritations and frustrations should no longer be part of the conversation, because there is a lot of blame to go around. The only issue moving forward should be how together we can attain the goals and aspirations of the people of St. Maarten and the Kingdom at large.”
Gibson said the meeting with Ministers Plasterk and Van der Steur, and SG Van Zwol had been conducted in a “very pleasant and constructive atmosphere.” Minister Van der Steur had a gift for Gibson at the end of the meeting. “It was a Delft Blue tile with the depiction of the Lady of Justice. I will cherish this gift and I want to thank the Minsters and the SG for the excellent reception I received during my stay in the Netherlands,” Gibson said.
Gibson also paid a courtesy visit to Council of State Vice-President Piet Hein Donner. Discussed at the meeting, which Gibson labelled “pleasant and informative,” were the state of affairs of the appeal cases that St. Maarten has brought before the Council. The Minister said he had used the opportunity to discuss the present relations in the Kingdom and the relations between the Netherlands and St. Maarten.
