Dear Editor,
St. Maarten Communications Union SMCU delivered a resolution to the Prime Minister, dated August 24, requesting the re-opening of the application for the CEO position of TelEm. We also requested for him to appoint the required new members on the board of directors.
The reason there is a need for new board members is because the articles of incorporation indicate that the board must consist of a maximum of seven, or a minimum of five members, whereas currently there are three members on the board.
The Prime Minister publicized on September 22, that three new board members would be added to the board for the board to be complete, but if three new board members are added to the board, it will be a total of six members (an even number), and not seven as is mentioned in the articles of incorporation.
The Prime Minister is playing a game where he will appoint three members to the board making the total board members six, and since this will not be in order with the articles of incorporation, one of the board members will become the CEO of TelEm and the board will remain with five members.
This would mean that the Prime Minister will not re-open the vacancy of the CEO of TelEm as was requested by the employees of TelEm, and he is trying to keep it a secret till after election.
TelEm has a total of one hundred and thirty-five employees, including the management and seventy-two of those employees requested the prime minister in a resolution sent August 24, to re-open the CEO vacancy, and make the process transparent where the employees working in TelEm could have also gotten the opportunity to apply for the function, based on the qualifications, as well as external candidates.
This is a clear indication of dictatorship of the Prime Minister where he is supposed to be working for the people of St. Maarten, and the people of St. Maarten made a request and it seems like it will not be granted.
The other situation is the merger of TelEm/UTS 60/40. The prime minister publicized the merger of these two companies without even knowing if the employees of these two companies were informed prior to the press release. Anytime there is such delicate information that will be publicized by the Council of Ministers or the Prime Minister, one should first make it his business to make sure the parties that are going to be affected by the situation are informed prior to making such statements.
St. Maarten has twenty-five percent shares in UTS in general; the question is what will happen with those shares, because Curaçao claims that St. Maarten has 12.5 percent.
The Prime Minister also has to inform the people of St. Maarten what will happen with those shares, and why Curaçao is making the claim that St. Maarten has 12.5 percent, while there are documents stating that St. Maarten has 25%. See the website http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0028594/2010-10-10 where information can be found for all the companies that where owned by the central government before 10-10-10. On August 23, 2012, all the shares that were divided in the islands of the former Netherlands Antilles.
Before discussing the merger of the two companies, St. Maarten has to know where it stands with the 25% shares it has in UTS.
The Council of Ministers needs to retract the two telecom licenses that are out there which passed their time to start operating on the island of St. Maarten. These are the things our government has to start doing, and they need to stop playing politics with the people of St. Maarten.
St. Maarten Communication Union
