Canada Post negotiates
termination of contract
PHILIPSBURG--A delegation from Canada Post International Ltd. (CPIL) has arrived in Curaçao to negotiate with representatives of the Central Government. The aim is to reach an agreement on termination of CPIL’s contract with New Post Netherlands Antilles NV (NPNA) for postal services in the Netherlands Antilles.
Postmaster General Franklin Sluis, who heads the Antillean negotiation team, said he hoped parties would reach an agreement on termination of the contract by December 1. The negotiations haven’t progressed smoothly thus far.
Sluis said clients of NPNA should not be affected by the termination of the cooperation. He added that if the negotiations did not give the desired result, the Netherlands Antilles would appeal to international arbitration.
CPIL notified Prime Minister Emily de Jongh-Elhage in a June 5 letter that effective December 1, 2007, the concession agreement for the postal and post banking services of NPNA would be terminated.
In a press release, NPNA Supervisory Board Chairman Gerard Power expressed his disappointment that, to date, it had not been possible to resolve the differences between the CPIL and the Central Government.
CPIL formally gave a “Notice of Default” to the Government in which it listed the Government’s most significant defaults under the concession agreement for the postal service. Therefore the “Notice of Termination” on June 5 could be of no surprise to parties involved, the release stated.
The Central Government was given 60 days to remedy the specific shortcomings. Failure to do so would pave the way to terminate the agreement.
Furthermore, the government was informed to expect a claim for damages as a result of the government not complying with parts of the agreement. In the Notice of Default, CPIL stated that it would prefer to come to an amicable settlement with the Government.
However, at the end of March, the Central Government sent a so-called “Notice of Default” to CPIL because the Canadians had not complied with their contractual obligations. Government received an answer in the last week of May, right before the end of the 30-day term that had been set for receiving an answer.
The reaction received from Canada was not satisfying. The Central Government is of the opinion that CPIL didn’t carry out its part of the concession and didn’t invest in the Antillean postal services. In addition, the Central Government believes the NPNA is being extorted by the high management fees charged while the contract is not for managing the company, but for a long-term concession.
