Questions arise about St. Maarten’s handling of its Kingdom loans – StMaartenNews.com – News Views Reviews

PHILIPSBURG – – The Permanent Parliamentary Committee for Kingdom Relations has suddenly woken up to the fact that St. Maarten is unable to repay loans that were granted almost fifteen years ago, in 2010. “Why did Curacao and St. Maarten not make reservations in their budgets for the repayment of these loans?” is one of the questions committee-members posed.

The budget for kingdom relations mentions loan repayments of 205 million (euro) this year but there is little chance that the Netherland will see this money – if ever. The committee also wants to know when a decision will be taken about the refinancing of these loans.

In October 2010, after obtaining autonomous status, St. Maarten received an interest-free loan from the Netherlands for 50 million guilders ($37.9 million). This loan expired in 2020 but the country was unable to repay and therefore the loan was refinanced.

Now the situation is getting worse, because St. Maarten is facing loans to the tune of 73.5 million guilders (41 million) that it is also unable to repay. Financial supervisor Cft has advised to refinance these loans. Why? Because there is no other solution.

State Secretary for Kingdom Relations Szabo has not taken a decision yet about a possible refinancing but he will have little choice. The loans Curacao and St. Maarten have to repay total 205 million guilders ($114.5 million).

The key question is of course why St. Maarten has never made any reservation in its budgets for the repayment of these loans. The issue has never come up in a budget debate and the successive governments has never proposed such reservations. The responsibility for this obvious oversight lies not only with successive governments, but also with successive parliaments that have, after all, a duty to control what their government is doing.

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Related article:
Opinion piece: “Reservations”

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