PHILIPSBURG--Newly-appointed Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Miklos Giterson says some residents are not cooperating with utilities company GEBE, resulting in some areas still being without light and water since Hurricane Irma struck in September last year.
Giterson was reporting at the time on information he had received during a meeting with GEBE on Wednesday. He said that while a few places are still without light and water since Hurricane Irma, GEBE has indicated that it is encountering many issues because home- and landowners do not want to cooperate and are not in favour of lampposts being erected on their properties. “They don’t want the ground to be dug up for underground cables,” he said.
He stressed that actions like these show that “we are holding ourselves back,” and noted that only together and with “teamwork” will St. Maarten be able to “make the dream work. If we as St. Maarten people are giving GEBE issues like this, we are holding ourselves back. We need to come together as a unit to have our country back on top as a victorious island.”
Giterson said he had received a lot of information during the meeting and another meeting would have to be scheduled to determine how to move forward on issues.
“It’s a lot of information to process,” he said.
