With the deplorable state of the roads in Simpson Bay village, I have some suggestions for the government to get funding to get them fixed. Government already tried to get financial aid from PJIA, but seems unable to pry some money from the hands of its President, which I find strange since the government is a major shareholder in PJIA. But they tried.
Since our noisy neighbour seems unwilling to give some of the improvement taxes back to the people who actually paid them, and continues to sit on its mountain of money, I think we need to come up with some other means of collecting money to fix our roads.
Living in Simpson Bay village or trying to run a business here is difficult if we can hardly reach our own homes, and when our customers cannot reach our businesses. So here it goes, in random order:
* Collect a toll from cars, buses and trucks that use Simpson Bay village as a shortcut, hoping to avoid the ridiculous traffic jams that occur every day in the Simpson Bay area.
* Exempt Simpson Bay businesses from paying TOT and have them put this into a foundation that eventually pays for the much-needed road works.
* Put all road tax collected from cars that are registered in Simpson Bay in the same foundation as mentioned above. If all the road tax paid by the rental companies, businesses and private entities that are registered in Simpson Bay is used to actually make Simpson Bay accessible, I believe we will finally get what we pay for.
* Use 25 per cent of the bridge fees collected at the Simpson Bay bridge for keeping Simpson Bay accessible to the visitors who come ashore after passing the bridge.
* Stop fixing small potholes in the Philipsburg area and use the money allocated for that to actually make areas accessible to its inhabitants.
Don't forget that Simpson Bay is a huge tax-money generator for the Government of St. Maarten, and it seems ridiculous that this same area and these businesses collecting these taxes have to crawl on their knees and bend over backwards to try to get some of this money back to the community they operate in.
I hope Government can use these suggestions to find a solution to ensure a safe and accessible passage into Simpson Bay village.
Simpson Bay businessman,
wondering where his tax money is.
