Dear Editor,
Every year, millions move through the books of St. Maarten’s government-owned companies. And every year, the financial audits come back clean. But what if those clean reports are just well-dressed illusions?
Let’s talk about TelEm. On paper, everything looked fine. Year after year, auditors said the financials were solid. But behind the numbers? Bonuses quietly doubled and millions were spent on failed side projects. Thankfully, it was the staff who raised the red flags. By 2020, the St. Maarten Communication Union (SMCU) demanded a forensic audit, claiming financial mismanagement dating back five years. Some of the most questionable decisions never showed up in the audit reports. Not because the auditors failed, but because financial audits aren’t built to ask why money was spent – only where it went.
Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated case. Look at GEBE. Before the 2022 ransomware attack, GEBE also had clean audits. No red flags. Then everything collapsed. The billing system went dark and revenue dropped by 60%. Investigators said the company wasn’t cooperating. And we later learned GEBE had been dipping into its cash reserves for years. The signs were there, just buried under spreadsheets and silence.
The Port of St. Maarten was no different. For years, its finances looked pristine until investigators uncovered a fake invoice scheme that drained over $8 million from public coffers. The CEO was convicted, then acquitted on appeal. But the fraud? That was real. And once again, it slipped past the auditors. They followed the rules, but missed the reality. No one looked deeper and that’s the problem.
Many of St. Maarten’s government-owned companies are audited by respected firms like BDO and Grant Thornton. They follow international standards and do their job as required. But the real question is: who’s auditing the auditors? There’s no independent oversight body on the island. No audit inspection board. No system that reviews whether financial audit files missed key warning signs. In places like Jamaica, there are agencies that audit the auditors, public institutions with the power to inspect, question, and correct.
In St. Maarten, we rely on trust and not much else. Some government-owned companies have internal auditors, supervisory boards, or a combination of the two, but those are just internal checks. And without external, independent accountability, even these layers can be sidestepped. Without real oversight, a clean financial audit becomes a stamp, not a safeguard.
This is where the General Audit Chamber has a critical role to play. It’s meant to be our financial watchdog. It has the legal power to audit ministries and, under certain conditions, government-owned companies, especially if they receive public funds or perform a public task. But in practice, its reach is limited. It often needs permission, political will, or public pressure to intervene. By then, the financial damage is usually already done.
We need to give the General Audit Chamber real teeth, not just to audit after the fact, but to dig deeper than any outside firm ever could. Because while financial audits check the numbers, the General Audit Chamber can challenge the choices behind them.
This kind of proactive oversight already exists elsewhere. When Jamaica’s oil refinery, Petrojam, looked too clean to question, their Auditor General didn’t wait for disaster. She stepped in, conducted a deep dive, and exposed nepotism, financial abuse, and procurement violations that no audit had flagged. Because in Jamaica, audits are just the start of accountability, not the end.
We need that mindset here.
If St. Maarten is serious about stopping the next crisis before it starts, we need more than routine financial audits. We need someone watching the whole system. Whether that’s an Audit Oversight Authority or a stronger General Audit Chamber, the goal is the same: independent eyes with the power to act. Because when no one’s steering up front, it’s only a matter of time before the back crashes.
Clean financial audits tell us that the numbers add up. But they can’t tell us what it cost to make them look that way.
Angelique Remy-Chittick
