Outspoken Windward Islands statesman Will Johnson has questioned the need for a Caribbean guilder that the new future countries within the Dutch Kingdom St. Maarten and Curaçao are to share now that the Netherlands Antilles is being dismantled (see related article). He did so after a visit to El Salvador, which no longer has an own currency since it was dollarised six years ago.
Of course Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba have already chosen for the US dollar as they become special overseas public entities of the Netherlands known as the BES islands. On that basis one perhaps could dismiss the comments of the veteran politician as coming from Saba, were it not that Johnson knows a lot more about St. Maarten than many people actually residing on the island do.
His reasoning – that St. Maarten has a one-pillar tourism economy dominated by the North American market and imports the bulk of its products from the United States – makes all the sense in the world. Not only that, but – as he points out – the US dollar rather than the current Antillean guilder already rules in day-to-day practice on the Dutch side.
In addition, local residents now wanting to use or do business in the prevailing currency in effect are penalised for it by having to pay a one per cent foreign exchange levy every time they take up dollars. This undoubtedly would continue to be the case if the Caribbean guilder were introduced.
Caretaker Finance Minister of the Netherlands Kees de Jager doesn't exclude a joint monetary system for the entire Dutch Caribbean based on the US dollar in the future (see also today's paper). He pointed out that even Aruba's Parliament had adopted a motion for government to look into switching to the US dollar from the "Aruba florin" it has had since leaving the Netherlands Antilles in 1986, which just like the Antillean guilder is pegged to the dollar as well.
But perhaps the biggest argument not to make haste with a Caribbean guilder is that there is already an Antillean guilder which is basically the same and will continue to exist for now, also because creating the new joint currency for St. Maarten and Curaçao at any rate will take some time. So before too much energy and time are spent on developing a new guilder that differs from the current one mostly in name, serious consideration should be given to the dollarisation option and the local parties participating in the September 17 elections would do well to state their positions on this issue loud and clear.
