Dear Editor,

Recently, the airwaves were filled with talks about government’s plans for the future of the landfill. Although the initiative is extremely late, it is still a step in the right direction. During these discussions, Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure Patrice Gumbs Jr. has invited the public to join in the dialogue, as the ministry seeks solutions to this challenging and long-term process.

After listening to his brief account of the situation at the landfill and his initiative to hold a town hall meeting, I would have preferred to get a comprehensive account of the garbage lot, from the very inception to present, before he organised the meeting – reasons for it being at its current location and a detailed timeline of the many challenges that have occurred over the years to warrant this urgent decision.

In this way, the community would have gotten a better understanding of what has transpired throughout the years; whether it was due to government’s lack of vision or anticipation of the future, or how we as a community have contributed to this situation because of our lack of awareness to be environmentally conscious.

Very concerning is that, not once have I heard the minister mention the significant amount of garbage that the cruise ships add to our landfill. So, when did the sanitary landfill became available to the cruise ships? Who initiated this contract and why? What does the contract entail? Do all of the cruise ships have the privilege to dispose their garbage at the dump? Before this contract was drafted and executed, where were they dumping their waste? Does this include sewage?

Government wants to burden the population once more with a garbage tax, but how much do these cruise ships pay to handle their waste? Does the payment go directly to government? How often do they make these payments and are they current with their fees? How does government handle their defaults, if any? Or is there a trade-off by them injecting monies into the market and cruise pier?

Did I hear correctly that the money which was made available to deal with the landfill situation would be better spent on the future project than to clean up the dump? Is it not better to get rid of all this mess before something new is being introduced? Has the scarcity of space been taken into consideration, based on this growing population? There has to be a way to get rid of this mountain that is sitting in the heart of Philipsburg.

What’s going to happen to all that muck that is still lying there? Even though there are no visible fires, something is fundamentally wrong, because even in the distance, the unbearable scent of manure fills the air, way too often.

I believe that government should focus on clearing this mountain while it pursues this waste-to-energy project.

Joslyn Morton

Dear Editor,

In The Daily Herald of August 27^th, on page 5, I read ’Ruff E Nuff Car & Bike show hailed a success. On that same morning on my way to Philipsburg I had noticed a white car with red lights in front. On that same morning the police who were towing illegally parked vehicles in the Frontstreet told me that I was lucky. My car was illegally parked also and when I saw that they were towing away the illegally parked cars I decided to move mine. I felt good because at last something was being done.

Why I decided to write to you now is because more and more I am proving to myself that when years ago I asked via the Editor what is going to happen with parking in Frontstreet when they put sidewalks on both sides of the street I was told that they were also going to put palm trees and bricks. Those involved, knew that in the long run delivery trucks would have to stop in the middle of the road to offload goods for the businesses. Before you know those schoolchildren were busy again. They said that those involved had already made a deal concerning the palm trees. I am very aware that it is no use crying over spilt milk, but we all know that so-called renovation of Frontstreet is a failure.

Then a few weeks aback I wrote to you mentioning that government should limit the import of motor vehicles because it is more than obvious that the streets of Sint Maarten are overcongested. After leaving the Frontstreet, between looking for a place to park and manouvering through the traffic congestion it took me almost two hours to find a space to park. So my question is why frustrate everybody who are working especially in Philipsburg, knowing that there is no space or very limited space for public parking? I know that the police people themselves do not feel justified in removing illegally parked vehicles because they themselves can't find adequate parking for their personal vehicles.

So my question now is this: Which is more offensive, motorbikes with very loud exhausts, illegally parking in Frontstreet or motorvehicles of which the glasses are completely covered with very dark tint?

Russell A. Simmons

Dear Editor,

In St. Maarten, GEBE is shorthand for frustration: the outages, billing mess, and infamous fuel clause. People can only take so much. However, the story doesn’t start or end with GEBE.

Behind every bill are two private monopolies that control the island’s energy and water lifelines: SOL Antilles N.V., the only fuel importer, and Seven Seas Water, the exclusive supplier of water purified by desalination. Together, they operate without competition, and their costs flow unchecked onto utility bills.

The government’s own tariff evaluation, finalized in April 2025 by the Bureau Telecommunication and Post (BTP) with support from the Regulatory Authority of Curaçao (RAC), confirmed this problem. The redacted report showed that between 2022 and 2024, GEBE over-collected through its fuel clauses. In regulated markets, excess charges are refunded to the people. In St. Maarten, they disappear into cash flows, with no questions asked.

Take SOL’s 30-year exclusive contract: it locks GEBE into buying oil only from its terminals, with no alternatives available. BTP/RAC reviewers found invoices padded with unexplained “throughput fees”, premiums and losses, with no regulator verifying a single one. With no price cap, SOL effectively writes the bill, and the public pays it. To make matters worse, GEBE’s aging engines, most of which are well past their intended lifespan, are burning more fuel than modern equipment, further inflating costs.

The same story plays out with water. Seven Seas’ 2007 “take-or-pay” contract forced St. Maarten to buy fixed volumes of desalinated water, whether it was needed or not.

After Hurricane Irma in 2017, the country had to pay millions for unused water. An amendment in 2018 lowered the contracted volume, saving about 4 million guilders per year for three years, roughly 12 million in total. However, the monopoly structure remained intact. In 2023, the deal was extended through 2027 because GEBE was still not ready to produce its own water supply. Officials publicized annual savings of about US $400,000. While significant on its own, this amount is modest compared to the earlier multi-million-guilder savings and does little to offset the inflated costs that households and businesses continue to bear.

People remain trapped in a one-sided arrangement where electricity has long been misallocated, and businesses pay four times more than households do. Faced with growing criticism, GEBE tried to defend its position by hiring Reporting, Controlling, and Regulatory Consulting B.V. (RCRC) to produce a counter-review released on July 31, 2025.

RCRC cautioned that simply cutting the fuel clause could destabilize GEBE, estimating a revenue hit of 2.6 cents per kilowatt hour, or XCG 9.2 million, annually. Their warning recalled Curaçao’s 2011 mistake, where regulators forced Aqualectra into steep tariff cuts, only for the company to collapse within two years. Curaçao’s government had to inject millions to rescue it from bankruptcy, and the people ended up repaying the so-called relief through higher bill payments. This is a textbook case of how quick fixes and political tampering can backfire. No subsidy, town hall, or empty promise will solve this problem. Subsidies only recycle taxpayers’ money; they do not cut costs; they simply shuffle them. No town hall can renegotiate monopoly contracts. Real relief comes only from structural reforms.

The BTP/RAC evaluation provided 13 solid recommendations, of which several were noteworthy. Generator fuels (LFO/HFO) must be brought under the same price controls as gasoline and LPG, with every SOL invoice being independently verified. A correction mechanism should be introduced so that over- or undercharging is automatically adjusted on future bills. The water fuel clause must be redesigned to ensure that electricity costs are transparent and fairly allocated. Most importantly, independent regulatory oversight must be established to end utility self-regulation. One more step that costs nothing but political will is to publish supplier contracts, redacted if necessary, so the public finally knows what it is paying for.

While St. Maarten clings to played-out political grandstanding, other islands have taken steps toward energy diversification. Curaçao strengthened its regulators in 2011 after Aqualectra collapsed due to political interference. Aruba began forming global partnerships in 2012 to roll out wind and solar projects and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Barbados broke monopoly markups in 2015 by introducing competitive fuel procurement policies. Jamaica went further, launching renewable energy auctions in 2016; by 2019, renewables already supplied 17% of its grid and are on track to reach 20% by 2030. The lesson is clear:

transparency, competition, and renewables are not theory; they are proven practices.

Keeping GEBE chained to fossil fuels while sidelining renewables guarantees higher future costs for the public. If leaders fear “losing control” of GEBE through privatization, then they should form strategic alliances with private partners that bring the technical expertise needed to modernize. The choice is not complicated: either keep paying inflated bills under a broken system or finally modernize the energy sector with real regulation, competition, and renewables.

The shadows behind your GEBE bills are not simple accounting errors; they are monopolies protected by law, one-sided contracts, and political cowardice. As long as these issues remain untouched, any talk of relief is nothing more than a performance. True relief means rewriting the rules of the game. Anything less is political theatre.

Angelique Remy-Chittick

Financial Strategist & Consultant @Financial.ish

Dear Editor,

There is responsible and then there is responsible. I do not know who is in charge but in this case I am sure that it does not take the Minister of VROMI [Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure – Ed.] to deal with the missing traffic signs and name-of-road signs. Even if it is a question of money, again I am sure that there are enough traffic signs in stock which can replace at least seventy-five percent or more of the missing traffic signs on Sint Maarten.

On Thursday morning on two occasions as I was walking through the Hotelsteeg from the Frontstreet towards the Backstreet I had to stop, first a rental car and later a car with a French number plate, from driving through the Hotelsteeg coming from the Backstreet direction Frontstreet. Fortunately on both occasions the cars had driven only about ten meters into the Hotelsteeg, so I stopped them, helped them to reverse and turn safely onto the Backstreet and after I explained them that they could make a left by the Kadaster to get to the Frontstreet.

I don’t want to sound sarcastic but I made sure to tell them to make a left turn on the Frontstreet because I was not sure if the sign obliging drivers to make a left turn on the Frontstreet is anywhere close to the Oranjeschool.

It is no secret that several government employees as well as leaders in government have been convicted for not doing the right thing with government monies, so since it is a while now that traffic signs have not been replaced, I hope there is no hanky panky and would love to hear a reasonable explanation why can’t those traffic signs and road-names signs, as well as number plates, be made from the old (crushed) cars which are on the Pondfill?

By the way, for those of you who are asking me if I don't feel the difference in temperature between cars with dark tint and light or no tint at all, I cannot say, because the car that I drive never had tint. Permit me to ask this: How much time of the day do people who work during the day spend in their car during the time that there is sunlight? So let’s be realistic and fair. What is more important, to have a car with illegal tint or the disregard for law and order while hiding behind the dark tint?

Russell A. Simmons