~ Marlin slams misinformation ~
PHILIPSBURG--Prime Minister William Marlin denounced on Sunday what he sees as misinformation again being peddled by United People’s (UP) party leader Member of Parliament (MP) Theo Heyliger, who is accusing Government of demanding funds from Government-owned utilities company GEBE to balance the draft 2016 budget.
Marlin said in an invited comment that the budget was already balanced and had been sent to Parliament last week Friday. The balanced draft budget, he added, does not include any funds from the utilities company.
Heyliger told The Daily Herald over the weekend that Government was “trying to get lots and lots of money from GEBE for its budget.” He speculated that there had been a demand for NAf. 20-30 million from the utilities company, which he said came “without any consideration for this vital company’s financial state.”
Heyliger asked whether any letter had been sent to GEBE in the past 60 days for several millions of guilders. He asked also whether the request was for dividends or whether it was to boost the draft 2016 budget.
If the request was for dividends, he asked on what policy it was based, whether there was a policy and, if GEBE honoured the request, whether it had reserves in the event of a disaster or unexpected expenses. He also wanted to know what the funds were for.
Heyliger also asked whether GEBE had performed a financial study to see whether it could afford to pay dividends, as the viability of the company is “of paramount importance.”
Heyliger queried whether the unions representing GEBE employees, its principal financier, supervisory board and management had been consulted about a request for funds and whether they were “comfortable with possibly putting the company and its employees at risk with this sizable demand.”
He asked how this would affect GEBE’s future investment.
Marlin said GEBE, which is owned by Government, had sent a request for permission to purchase an engine from Wärtsilä without going on public bid because of the urgency of it and the company eventually wants all of its engines from this company. The purchase was approved and GEBE was advised to obtain the engine on financing rather than forking out about NAf. 27 million for a cash payment.
The suggestion was to put a down payment of NAf. 5 million and of the NAf. 22 million that would be saved about half could be kept in the company’s reserves and the other portion be paid to Government as an advance on dividends. The new generator is being acquired at a cost of 10-11 million euros (US $10.8-11.9 million).
In addition, the utilities company has about NAf. 32 or NAf. 35 million in reserves, sitting on an account as proceeds from water. Marlin said water was a Government responsibility. GEBE purchases water and manages its distribution for Government. The funds belong to Government, which asked the utilities company for NAf. 20 million of the funds to be used for Government responsibilities.
“Nothing is to balance the budget, as the budget is already balanced and has already been presented to Parliament without these figures,” Marlin said.
He said GEBE had not presented an investment plan or a budget and he did not want to turn this into a GEBE versus Government fight, although it appeared that the UP leader wanted to do so.
When it comes to cutting back on expenses, Marlin said the utilities company could cut down on cost of paying consultants. He alluded to former GEBE official Romelio Maduro, who was acting on Heyliger’s instruction to hire a consultant and paying that person huge consultancy fees and hundreds of thousands of dollars to write a book and thousands of dollars a month. And whenever the utilities company needed work done the consultant had to hire another consultant to complete the work and be paid even more.
Marlin said that while Heyliger was making “a whole lot of noise,” it was Heyliger’s Government that was responsible for the “financial mess” the country was in. It was the UP Government that overspent some NAf. 20 million in 2014 and did not balance a budget in 2015.
“In fact we do not have a budget for 2015 and the instruction given by the Kingdom Government because of financial mismanagement was given to his [Heyliger’s UP – Ed.] Government. Now that the incumbent Government is steering St. Maarten to financially better grounds, we have to comply with the instruction ensuring that the budget is balanced.”
Marlin said Government had been given up to January 31 to present a balanced budget and the deadline had been met by the budget being presented to Parliament on Friday. He said too that part of the instruction from the Kingdom Government was that the debts of past years had to be paid up in full by 2018. This means the debts to Social and Health Care Insurance SZV and to general pension fund APS have to be addressed.
“So while the UP leader can have press releases sent out on his behalf to the media, the public needs to be reminded that it’s the Government of the same UP leader that has the country in this mess,” Marlin said.
