Dear Editor,
All countries in the world have recognized that their governments must regulate financial institutions. They differ, however, in the extent to which they guarantee the effective regulation of financial institutions so that the citizens are always guaranteed that they will never be disadvantaged in the areas like pension or bank deposits, medical insurance or life insurance.
So when you hear voices in the community that suggest that the government should take no responsibility for such losses you get to wonder. If those voices are of the opinion that the government bears no responsibility then you wonder why they have not objected to the high cost which St. Maarten pays to the Central Bank to perform those functions. If they think a financial free-for-all would be better for the country an explanation of that thought would be interesting.
In the case of the ENNIA problem, there are in fact two problems. The first is that many hard-working people will lose their pension and the second is that we have been paying a financial regulator huge amounts of money and this regulator has not managed to effectively regulate a critical financial entity.
Robbie Ferron
