Dear Editor,
Some weeks ago, I wrote about clean audits and dirty truths, how pristine financials didn’t stop collapses at GEBE, TelEm, or the Port of St. Maarten. This is part two. ENNIA shows what happens when red flags are ignored, truth-tellers are fired, and oversight arrives too late.
In 2017, KPMG, then ENNIA’s auditor, flagged inflated assets, shady intercompany deals, and one outrageous sum: Mullet Bay, booked at NAf. 770 million. Independent appraisers valued it closer to NAf. 90 million. This wasn’t blind optimism. It was a smoke-and-mirrors stunt used to justify over NAf. 700 million in dividend payouts to Parman International, which is owned by Hushang Ansary.
When KPMG raised the alarm, ENNIA didn’t correct its course. They fired KPMG. In came Baker Tilly Dutch Caribbean. Their auditors, Victor Bergisch and Eric Vesseur, signed off on the numbers that kept the illusion alive.
By then, the myth had taken root. Even as cracks appeared, defenders clung to the belief that Mullet Bay’s beachfront location and future potential somehow justified the inflated numbers. However, speculation is not an accounting principle, and wishful thinking is not a vision. It’s fiction. And that lie became the foundation for dividends that should never have been paid, especially not with money meant for pensioners.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Curaçao (CBCS) and St. Maarten had been raising internal warnings since 2015. But their hands were tied. The law did not allow them to act until the collapse became unavoidable. Emergency supervision wasn’t a bold preventive move. It was damage control. “We did not come to this measure lightly,” said the CBCS in 2018, as it stepped in to protect NAf. 1.2 billion in commitments to policyholders.
The Court of First Instance 2023 ruling confirmed that inflated valuations of Mullet Bay enabled illegal dividend payments at ENNIA. By 2025, four accountants had been suspended by the Dutch Accountantskamer (the disciplinary board for accountants in the Netherlands) for approving those numbers: Bergisch and Vesseur of Baker Tilly Dutch Caribbean and Rokx and Pupping of Mazars. The disciplinary actions cited their failure to challenge the valuations and apply professional skepticism.
This wasn’t an isolated mistake. It exposed a system where warnings were ignored and accountability arrived too late, a failure not just of individuals, but of the very safeguards meant to protect the public interest. Auditors rely on management’s honesty and depend on supervisory boards to act. But when truth-tellers are fired and boards rubber-stamp financial fantasies, the process stops being oversight and becomes theater.
These failures reflect deeper, long-standing habits and pressures in our system. When weak supervision becomes the norm and speaking up is discouraged, it is easier for problems to be ignored. Add a central bank with delayed enforcement powers, and one gets a perfect storm. One that cost thousands of ENNIA policyholders their peace of mind and nearly their pensions.
Once again, the public is left asking: at what cost to the taxpayer?
If we do not fix the system, we will continue to relive the same failures. St. Maarten cannot afford to wait for the next disaster. Strengthening the General Audit Chamber is an essential first step to ensure that local oversight is robust and independent. However, local reforms alone are insufficient. Audit oversight in the Dutch Caribbean is divided, with each island setting its own standards and enforcement policies. This patchwork approach allows firms to exploit the gaps between jurisdictions.
To truly protect the public interest, we need a region-wide authority built with input from each island’s Audit Chamber, empowered to review audits, enforce standards, and hold firms accountable. Establishing such a body would require collaboration between island governments, agreement on shared standards, and sustainable funding, steps that demand political will and regional cooperation. Only then can fragmented supervision be transformed into a shared shield.
So long as these gaps remain, so will the risks. Without real reform, the pattern will hold: truth-tellers will be sidelined, and those meant to protect us will either look away or arrive after the heist. We are not preventing collapse; we are rehearsing it. This time, it was illegal dividend payouts. Next time, it could be your savings, your healthcare, or your future.
Silence isn’t neutral. It’s expensive.
Angelique Remy-Chittick
Financial Strategist and Consultant
Financial.ish
