Says country has no automatic right to NAf. 78M
THE HAGUE--Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Piet Hein Donner understands St. Maarten’s financial dilemma, but is saying “no” to additional funds to help cover the country’s budget deficit.
According to the minister, St. Maarten doesn’t have an automatic right to NAf. 78 million originally reserved for the country in the debt reorganisation exercise of the past few years.
He agreed with St. Maarten’s stance that, unlike Curaçao, not all St. Maarten’s debts had been reorganised. However, the Final Declaration of November 2006 contained an ultimate date – December 31, 2005 – for the debts that would be taken along in the reorganisation exercise paid for by the Netherlands. St. Maarten sent a letter to Donner last week, asking the minister to make NAf. 78 million left over from the debt reorganisation available to the country.
Donner explained that the debt reorganisation and the issue of payment of claims had already been concluded and that no exception could be made for St. Maarten. “It is very difficult to do something for St. Maarten without creating a precedent for the other islands. You can’t go on forever with this [payment of debts, ed.],” he told The Daily Herald in an interview. He pointed out that the Dutch government itself was faced with major budget cuts.
The minister stressed that even if St. Maarten were to receive debt reorganisation funds, this money should not be used to cover the island’s budget deficit. St. Maarten’s argument that it needs the NAf. 78 million to help pay for the execution of the plans of approach to build and improve a number of tasks mainly in the Justice area doesn’t hold water for Donner.
“St. Maarten wanted to become a country. If you want to be a country, you have to be able to finance it. You cannot say now that it proves to be impossible, because actually you are telling your people that you can’t do it. St. Maarten [the politicians, ed.] should realise this,” he said.
St. Maarten drew up plans of approach for the tasks that it couldn’t assume fully by itself. Donner said the plans were necessary for St. Maarten to be able to fully function as a country. “St. Maarten cannot say now that it wants to phase these plans a bit.”
The minister said he understood St. Maarten’s difficulty in having all in place at once and called it a great effort to build a country in a few months, but added that it was unacceptable to cut back on essential services because the island faced a budget deficit. “The plans of approach are in St. Maarten’s interest. They are doing it primarily for their island,” he said.
According to Donner, the plans of approach and the allocation of funds for the necessary human resources should be incorporated in the budget to the full extent, even if the plans are not completely executed in this budgetary year. “If it turns out that you were not able to spend the amount on human resources because they were not hired, then you have a windfall for your budget,” he said.
Asked about the role of the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT, Donner said he had not been a party to the discussions between CFT and the St. Maarten government to come to an agreement on the 2010 budget. The Financial Supervision Law clearly stipulates the role of the CFT, he added.
Donner discussed the CFT issue with St. Maarten’s Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams in The Hague last week.
Having sound finances and a balanced budget in place are in St. Maarten’s own interest, said the minister. “This is not to please the Netherlands,” he said, pointing out that international financial credibility, avoiding creating large debts with high interest rates, could only do St. Maarten good.
Donner didn’t want to comment on the recommendation of the CFT to the Kingdom Council of Ministers to give St. Maarten an instruction to fix the budget deficit. CFT’s letter will be discussed by the Kingdom Council of Ministers on April 1. “I told Mrs. Wescot that I hope that we can prevent the minister [Donner, ed.] from being drawn into the discussion and that it would be good to reach an agreement with the CFT before April 1,” he said. Suzanne Koelega
