Dear Editor,
Permit me to address Prime Minister Luc Mercelina, with the hope that he would give some thought to my suggestions and inquiries, but more importantly, that he tries his utmost to push this country forward. The stagnation is causing frustration and the population deserves an explanation.
Prime Minister, on every street corner, the conversation involves the lack of action from this government. People are frustrated and quite disappointed, because this is not what the population had predicted. The people had expected to see a more robust economy and a more harmonious Council of Ministers. Instead, we are witnessing the same selfish and disorganized team, as the previous administration.
In light of this view, it’s not every contract that was made with the public can be achieved within the time frame that was specified. Sometimes a minister can go off-track because of minor obstacles that delay several important processes. Instead of waiting forever for these changes to occur, the appropriate action is to inform the public of the challenges that you are faced with. Sometimes I wonder if we still have a prime minister.
Case in point: It has been 3 years since the hack took place at the utility company, and to this day, we are still experiencing power outages, although it is not as frequent, and the time span is a lot less. The population is extremely frustrated because the matter seemed to be a never-ending story. Prime Minister, I don’t feel that the people should be punished any longer for something that we are not responsible for. There must be a resolution to this ongoing confusion.
Prime Minister, do you know what is missing from this manufactured catastrophe? Not enough time or interest was dedicated to pursue the culprits who executed this hack. Yes, it was crucial to get the company up and running as soon as possible, but a vigorous pursuit into who instigated and committed this heinous act, should have taken place simultaneously.
Up to today, this exploitation of the population is not being pursued, Prime Minister. Why is that? To me, here is where the key lies to unravel the mystery of this criminal act, in order to ease the burden and confusion of these excessive and incorrect bills. If this matter is left alone, what guarantee is there that this action will not reoccur and in a more detrimental manner than before?
I frankly believe that this should be tackled post-haste, with the goal to contract an independent firm from abroad – one that has no affiliation with anyone on the island – a company that will reveal the truth and bring the culprits to justice. With regard to the recovery funds that were allocated for The World Bank to manage, why is it that the critical infrastructures are the last to be attended to? And why does it seem like it is The World Bank that tells the government what projects to work on and not the other way around?
After Hurricane Irma, my understanding was that The World Bank’s position would be to ensure that the funds are allocated to the various projects, according to the needs of St. Maarten; not for them to dictate this stringent criteria that has changed the entire concept of their purpose for being contracted to execute the task. Besides, their contract was 5 years, with a possibility to extend it for another 2 years. Eight (8) years have passed and to this day, I cannot point to anything that would justify the millions that were spent already.
The only good thing about this group is that they offer very good training, so I was told. Prime Minister Luc Mercelina, I’m still puzzled. How is it that critical infrastructures like the library and schools were left until the very end of their tenure to come on stream?
Was this a tactic for them to remain longer than the initial contract or was it the idea of the previous government to prolong this process? Prime Minister, I know that you have been in government for a little over a year. How do you know exactly what The World Bank is doing? Do they report to the government or directly to Holland?
The high and incorrect utility bills and not feeling the effect of The World Bank are two major issues that have the population very disgruntled. Prime Minister, if you can address the public more often and in a very simple manner, we would have a better understanding of the situation, instead of depending on speculation or a misconception.
Joslyn Morton
To the Editor and the people of Sint Maarten,
Around the globe, governments have enacted legislation mandating the provisions of annual financial statements of publicly-owned companies, including 25+ Caribbean countries. In Saint Martin, this is governed by the Corporate Governance Code for State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO). The key requirements state that:
* SEOs must submit audited financial statements to the Government of Sint Maarten and Parliament of Sint Maarten within 5 months after the financial year ends.
* SOEs must adopt a Supervisory Board model, ensuring oversight and accountability. The board is appointed by the Government of Sint Maarten.
* Government of Sint Maarten formulates national policies that guide SOE operations and ensure compliance with integrity standards, procurement rules, and financial management practices to prevent corruption and inefficiency.
* Parliament of Sint Maarten ensures government accountability and transparency through the right of interpellation, to ask questions and instigate inquiries.
* The Code sets standards for transparency, reporting, and the role of external auditors.
* The Committee for Financial Supervision (CFT) monitors compliance and regularly reminds the government to submit missing annual reports.
Let’s be honest, how did GEBE manage to go four years without submitting financial statements? And where were the Supervisory Board, the Government, Parliament, and the CFT during all this? These bodies exist to ensure accountability, yet this glaring lapse suggests they weren’t doing their jobs.
What makes it worse is that the Government itself, one of the key oversight authorities, previously failed to submit its own financial statements for five years, only acting after pressure from the Dutch.
At this point, it’s hard to believe this is just incompetence. The pattern looks deliberate, and it raises serious questions about whether there’s large-scale financial mismanagement, or worse, embezzlement happening within both GEBE and government. Adding to the concern: GEBE reportedly has no signed contract with SOL, despite spending huge sums on fuel every year. That’s not just bad governance; it’s a red flag that demands immediate answers.
Both government and Parliament have the right of inquiry, e.g. via a forensic audit or parliamentary enquiry. In four years, they have not acted, but in the meantime, our people are being swamped with mysteriously high bills after the hack. Let that sink in for a moment and tell me whether this government has the people or even the economy of this country at heart—a country that is laden with debt.
What more messaging do we need for us to wake up!?
Regards
Romeo Jermin
Dear Editor,
Our parliamentarians and ministers must please be united concerning the situation within the Central Bank. NA did not do enough to help solve the problems at the Central Bank and it is taking too long. Fifteen parliamentarians and seven ministers have not yet appointed someone for the position at the Central Bank.
It's good to have a St. Maartener to fulfil the position, but both parliamentarians and ministers should not put blind eyes and deaf ears on this. The St. Maarten people want their own Central Bank as soon as possible. This is a big mistake sharing your central bank with Curaçao after 10/10/10.
Cuthbert Bannis
Dear Editor,
Further to the discussion on the “inevitable” deficit that occurs in the government of Sint Maarten (ref Minister Heyliger-Marten), it is valuable to take a deeper look at the background of this deficit. One of the major stand-outs of the financial picture Sint Maarten government is how decisions in the past have resulted in the government taking responsibility of a wide range of affairs that might have otherwise been operated by private or independent owners who would bear the risk of failure.
Globally there has been a trend for airports to be privately owned, harbours to be privately owned, many utilities to be privately owned and most telcoms to be privately owned. In Sint Maarten the picture is that this very small economy that is expecting rapid growth is bearing the responsibility for a wide range of such tasks and the liabilities associated with them.
The decision-making background to this probably stems from a colonial past. The general view has probably been that if “we” can own it , then “we” are likely to optimize the benefits in this sector. This decision-making has probably underestimated the need to capitalize and operate in a lean manner in the market conditions of each of these sectors.
It is likely that participation in the telecoms business is the most extreme case. Unless the telecoms market has suddenly stopped experiencing the rapid disruption it has had in recent years, it is likely to be buffeted by new circumstances in the next few years.
The imperfect logic of “we” getting more benefits when we own it applies particularly to the decision that “we” needed our own currency. It was thought that if it was a currency owned by “we” it would bring economic value to Sint Maarten. In spite of clear warnings that the benefits an owned currency brought no advantages and greater costs to Sint Maarten it was decided to commit to that expensive endeavour.
One hopes that in the future the dominating political forces in Sint Maarten will have a better understanding of what benefits “we”.
Robbie Ferron
Dear Editor,
I read with great interest, and elements of unease, the recent editorial comparing the island’s independence movement(s) to the exported “American dream” championed by fundamentalist, evangelical missionaries. While it is, indeed, a compelling read, both in structure and content, and the parallels drawn have merits which warrant both consideration by, and caution from, readers, it also reads as laden with the erasure of how interwoven Caribbean political imaginations are with each other and with other global forms.
Further it seems a refusal to go deeper into sentiments around democratic deficits, economic inequality, daily survival, and how the activists the author refers to are themselves shaped by colonial legacies and coloniality.
While these influences should not excuse the phobias (xenophobia, homophobia, and others) that have surfaced in some corners of the independence discourses, or the ways the movement can edge dangerously close to elitist interests while sidelining the truly marginalized, those dynamics still deserve to be looked at and handled with care. It is important to ask hard questions about who is being centered, and who is being left out, without collapsing the whole project into a singular critique.
It is also important to grapple with the complex and often troubling question of what self-determination truly means, and how different interpretations of it, especially on big-ocean/small-island emerging states, can come into conflict with one another. There is room, actually, a need, for sharper internal reflection within the movements, and of course continued external critique, but both have to come from places that also consider the historical weight and layered complexities people are carrying.
I think Prof. Guadeloupe’s piece begins by offering a false equivalence between predominantly white missionaries from the United States and primarily Black activists from the island. This equivalency is false, because these two groups did not and do not come to their work from the same conditions. In fact, it conflates the extension of colonizing projects based on violence and spiritual conquest in the global south, with the fight of formerly colonized and marginalized global south people fighting for reparative justice and further control over their own futures.
To be sure, I understand Prof. Guadeloupe’s suggestion that Caribbean activists, including independistas, not take on oppressive behaviors and/or become new colonizers. We can turn to present-day South Africa for insights into how xenophobia, born out of a particular socio-economic powerlessness, can have people violently targeting people from neighboring countries, instead of directing their anger towards the dynamics and systems causing and creating structural inequalities.
Still, what was not attended to in Prof. Guadeloupe’s piece is how power moved differently for and within both groups and this warrants further attention.
Prof. Guadeloupe is right to critique all forms of narrow nationalism, but he also does so without addressing the fact that we still exist in a world dominated by nation-states and the trans-national corporations which both challenge and reinforce their powers (when it benefits their interests). In this time of flux, the dreaming of islanders straddles old paradigms of nation-state and new sub- and trans-nation longing and navigating. It is not easy and it is chaotic.
Many (post)colonial Caribbean struggles are messy, hybrid, and full of contradictions. Many activists grapple with and imagine borders or flags, while grappling with the ideas of more than just borders or flags; busy with the work of thinking nation, pan-nation, beyond nation and state all at once. At the same time, they are still having to, try to, do the work of 1) recovering themselves from the histories they were erased from, 2) figuring out ways to speak with their own language, dialects and accents without shame, 3) moving through multiple layers of bureaucracies without humiliation, and 4) demanding to no longer be told that their dreams are not radical enough.
We must indeed question philosophies and paradigms that exclude people and reproduce hierarchies in any form under new flags and/or within new borders. However, we must also hold space for the fact that people grappling with the legacies of the past may reach for forms of belonging, autonomy and sovereignty that reflect both their pains and their possibilities. So, to compare local Caribbean activists to born-again missionaries erases the deep pluralism and political nuances present in these movements where people are still struggling to find ways to articulate and critique their own positions, while caring for the positions of others. This is not to say that they must be excused from continuing to deepen their own work or making it more expansive, it is to say that the critique must not be overly simplified.
There is, in the editorial, a powerful warning about fundamentalism and nationalism, but there is also a troubling flattening. I read in the calls, albethey problematic, to center “real St. Martiners”, a plea (almost desperate) towards memory, towards redress, towards balance in a place where those with deep roots (albethey historically and currently migratory) are often made strangers in their own land (often by both the decisions of their own people in authority and also the colonial legacies and capitalist currents that caused and continue to cause involuntary and voluntary movement).
If not careful, the think piece reads, not as a critique of one kind of dream that now holds place and space on the island next to many others, but, also, as a veiled defense of a colonial status quo. Perhaps, it does not mean to do so, but here caution must be advised as well.
In some ways this piece co-opts and utilizes decolonial language in ways that undermine localized decolonial practices, albeit they imperfect. For sure, no project for justice should be immune from self and/or external examination. However, we must also take care that that critique does not become a veiled refusal to listen, to believe, or to imagine that these particular Caribbean people might be capable of dreaming dreams born out of their own regional and global entanglements, quite unlike those of the group they are being compared to.
For sure, activists on St. Maarten, in their dreaming, should also imagine new economies and social relations, both based on (ancestral) memories, but also imaginaries of more just futures, hopefully anchored in care and relationality. And yes, nativism must be critiqued, but also, we should and must consider why critiques of nativism are so often weaponized against formerly colonized peoples, while colonial metropoles are allowed to retain and defend nation-state identities, borders, and state-centric economic logics without equivalent scrutiny. Why is the desire for Caribbean self-determination stigmatized, while the continued democratic deficit of Dutch political authority is left largely un(der)interrogated?
I agree with the writer on a few points, but particularly this one: Perhaps it is time to dream another dream or dream other dreams. However, to dream another dream, we must first have and/or create space to dream our own and to dream other dreams, we must first be allowed to dream on our own. We must continue to allow those dreams to emerge from all segments of society, even those we disagree with. Let us continue to allow dreams that center Caribbean people’s right to imagine (themselves and their futures) otherwise, even if that imagining is imperfect or (internally/externally) contested. Let us also continue to build our critique of those dreams, but in our critique let us not punch down under the guise of punching across.
Let us not oversimplify our critique of any dreams and/or dreamers. In our critique let us, not diminish or erase the agency of local actors. So, to those who are already busy dreaming, the independistas, the interdependistas, the pan-Caribbeanists, the diplomats, the youth activists, the quiet and not so quiet elders, I offer to you a middle road where there is a place for many dreams; older dreams, newer dreams, and dreams still emerging. A space where hopefully these dreams will continue to bounce up each other (in increasingly meaningful and respectful ways) in processes of dream defining and dream refining.
On this middle road do not reject the critique offered by Prof. Guadeloupe outright, let it sharpen you, but not distract you. Let it call you, and us, all to be more precise, more principled, more expansive in our visions. Let it be a space where more spaces must be made for other dreamers; those whose roots grow differently in Soualiga’s soil. We may not all carry the same version of St. Martin in our hearts, but may we one day, use all of those different versions towards our collective work; a cooperative, inclusive visioning. In doing so we must indeed move toward a shared, plural, living dream rooted in dignity, care, (re)memory and imaginary. Those dreams are already being imagined on St. Martin, we just have to keep listening and get better at listening, especially to and for each other.
Semper Progrediens
Lysanne “GoddessEye” Charles, MSc.
