Dear Editor,
In September 2026, the Audit Chamber published a report on the governance and financial structure of the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary of Sint Maarten in The Hague. As co-members of the Board of the Foundation “Stichting Kabinet Sint Maarten”, we feel compelled to respond, because an Audit Chamber report that draws such far-reaching conclusions ought to be historically complete, constitutionally careful and factually verifiable. In our view, this report falls short in that respect.
One of the first concerns is that not all members of the Foundation’s Board were heard during the audit. The report itself states that interviews were conducted with various persons, including the Director of the Cabinet, who also serves as Chair of the Foundation Board. The undersigned Board members, however, were neither interviewed nor invited to provide their perspective.
That is unfortunate. While the Director was able to provide important information concerning the Cabinet and the Foundation, other members of the Board have served for a longer period and could have supplemented that information with additional institutional and historical context. Their longer involvement with the Foundation could have contributed further insight into the development of the legal structure, the role traditionally envisaged for the Foundation and its Board, and the various efforts made over the years to arrive at a more appropriate and durable institutional framework.
The Audit Chamber says nothing about how the Foundation came into being. The Foundation did not originate as a “shadowy construction” designed to avoid public accountability. It forms part of an older tradition of the former foundation “Stichting Het Antillenhuis”, the foundation that was connected to the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands Antilles. Under the Netherlands Antilles, the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary in the Netherlands was formally embedded in the Netherlands Antillean government structure. Alongside that, a foundation-like structure later existed that mainly served a practical purpose in relation to personnel and pension matters in the Netherlands. The Audit Chamber passes over that history and begins its analysis in 2011, when, according to archival records, the Government of Sint Maarten approved the transfer of NAf. 500,000 to the Foundation and stated that conditions had to
be established for accounting and reporting. As a result, the current structure is too readily portrayed as a private-law anomaly, whereas it also stems from a historical administrative practice surrounding the representation of the Netherlands Antilles and the island territories in the Netherlands.
This does not mean that nothing could be improved. On the contrary. From 10-10-10 onwards, St. Maarten could have arranged the succession to the Antillenhuis far more carefully by embedding it more formally, as Curaçao did subsequently in 2012.
To this day, St. Maarten has not yet put in place a comparable formal institutional embedding. That is not the fault of the Cabinet’s staff, nor of the Foundation that from scratch had to take over the tasks of the Antillenhuis for St. Maarten. This is a legislative and organisational issue dating back to the constitutional transition. That is precisely why it is troubling that the Audit Chamber report does not place this history at the centre of its analysis. The conclusion should not have been framed as though an unknown private structure had been discovered, but rather as follows: a necessary government outpost continued to function after 10-10-10, while the legislature has not yet replaced the Antillean institutional embedding in time with a St. Maarten legislative framework.
In addition, the Foundation and the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary have been visible in the budget for many years and were therefore also visible and controllable to the Audit Chamber all the time. This was not a hidden flow of funds. In the 2013 annual accounts, budget item 3011 – Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary appears under the Ministry of General Affairs, with both actual expenditure and a budgeted amount. In later national budgets “item 3011” appears year after year.
If the Audit Chamber now states that the formal basis for the transfer and accountability of these funds is inadequate, the logical question is why this was not investigated or identified much earlier by that same Audit Chamber, since the budget and destination were visible, just as the functioning of the Cabinet and Foundation was, and that it was clear where the public funds were going. The omission is that the formal institutional embedding and accountability structure were left unfinished for years.
More importantly still, the Cabinet and the Foundation have in fact been trying for over a decade to remedy that omission and initiated draft legislation in 2014 in joint cooperation with the legislative department of the Ministry of General Affairs. The parliamentary status list refers to a draft national ordinance: “National Ordinance amending the National Ordinance on the Structure and Organization of the National
Government in connection with the embedding of the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary”, parliamentary year 2017-2018-113. According to that list, the documents were submitted on August 21, 2018. The explanation in the status list is clear: the draft seeks to embed the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary in the constitutional and governmental system of St. Maarten. This legislation has now remained pending for almost ten years, yet the Audit Chamber says nothing about it.
The existence of that draft does not necessarily mean that the approach proposed in 2018 remains the only, or even the most appropriate, solution today. Nearly a decade has passed, circumstances may have changed, and the governance and accountability issues identified in the Audit Chamber's report should themselves form part of any renewed assessment by the legislature.
What the 2018 proposal does demonstrate, however, is that the institutional position of the Cabinet had already been recognised as an issue requiring formal consideration. The proposal therefore represents an existing legislative option and an important part of the institutional history that should, in our view, have been addressed in the Audit Chamber’s report.
The Audit Chamber now writes only that “there is an accountability gap”, but not that, since 2018, there has been a concrete legislative proposal to close that gap. We see that as fundamental omission in the report, because it is up to the Audit Chamber to properly inform the legislature so the legislative process can continue.
In that context, the Board of the Foundation has always emphasised that its role is limited. The Foundation is not an alternative ministry, not an independent policy body, and not a political power centre. The role of the Board relates primarily to employment-law, pension law and legal-status issues, precisely because employees work in the Netherlands and Dutch labour law, social security, and pension rules must be taken into account. That, too, is historically understandable: operating from The Hague necessarily brings with it Dutch employment-law and pension-law realities.
The Audit Chamber report rightly states that the current basis needs formal embedding. But it does not do sufficient justice to the question of its background. The Audit Chamber writes that the Foundation is a Dutch private-law legal entity, that it is the employer of the personnel, and that it performs financial, personnel and administrative functions in support of the Cabinet. That is factually correct, but a distorted picture emerges if the history, the transparent presence of budget item 3011, and the uncompleted amendment
to the National Ordinance Structure and Organisation of National Government LIOL are not mentioned.
That picture also does no justice to the people who work for St. Maarten in The Hague. In our view, the Cabinet has proven over the years to be a useful outpost of the national government. It supports the Minister Plenipotentiary, maintains contacts within the kingdom, is involved in the preparation of kingdom legislation, and assists with practical and consular matters. The employees who work there do not do so as part of an “accountability gap”, but as people who devote themselves with heart and soul to St. Maarten.
That is why the tone and framing of the report are unfortunate in our view. Of course the Audit Chamber must be critical because public funds must be subject to proper control. Of course the government must still provide a clear public-law framework, with clear rules on tasks, staffing, mandate, financial accountability and oversight. But that is very different from portraying a historically grown organisation as though it had operated outside the sight of government from its start. The opposite is true. The Cabinet was in the budget and yearly the accountancy reports were provided. The structure was known, as was its need for formal embedding, while draft legislation was on the shelf intended to repair what was left undone at 10-10-10.
A careful Audit Chamber report should therefore have done at least four things. First, it should have described the history originating in the Antillenhuis. Second, it should have found that, at 10-10-10, St. Maarten did not embed the St. Maarten successor to the Antillenhuis formally in the national government organisation, whereas Curaçao did so later on. Third, it should have stated that “budget item 3011” has been visible in the budget and annual accounts for many years. Fourth, it should have mentioned that a draft amendment to the LIOL has existed precisely to embed the Cabinet in the constitutional and governmental system of St. Maarten.
Had the report done so, it would not have been less critical, but it would have been fairer and more complete. As it stands, the impression is created that the Foundation and the Cabinet themselves are the problem, whereas the problem is that a useful outpost of St. Maarten has had to function since 10-10-10 within a not yet finalised legal and constitutional framework.
The appropriate response is therefore not merely to criticise the existing structure that even wrongfully is presented by the Audit Chamber as a just made novel discovery. The
focus should be to complete the institutional work that has remained outstanding with the new suggestions of the Audit Chamber. The objective should be to establish a framework that clearly embeds the roles of the Cabinet and the Foundation and its employees.
Finally. St. Maarten deserves a strong, professional and accountable Cabinet in The Hague. The people who work there deserve recognition for their commitment. And precisely for that reason, they were entitled to expect from the Audit Chamber a report that is not only critical, but also historically accurate, complete and careful.
Peter Molenaar
Former Head of Finance and Member of the Board of the Foundation “Stichting Kabinet Sint Maarten” since 2011
Wim van Sambeek
Member of the Board of the Foundation “Stichting Kabinet Sint Maarten” since 2019.
