THE HAGUE--Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk can’t do much about the plans to issue casino licences to SXM Airport and the Harbour Group of Companies in St. Maarten because the moratorium has been lifted by the local government.

 

This was the response to written questions posed by Member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament André Bosman of the liberal democratic VVD party in relation to an October 2, 2014, article in The Daily Herald that the airport and harbour had requested a permit to construct a casino on their premises.

 

“There is no moratorium on casino permits. Minister Ted Richardson has lifted the existing moratorium on casino licences on October 1, 2014,” stated Plasterk in his reply of November 5, 2014. Bosman had been very critical of the plans to give the airport and harbour a casino licence.

 

Bosman had also asked about integrity issues in St. Maarten in his set of questions. He asked whether the minister shared his opinion that the situation was “very serious” and that there was “no notion of integrity” on the island.

 

Plasterk agreed that “indeed the integrity situation was very serious.” He stated that the integrity reports drafted by the PricewaterhouseCoopers PwC audit team and the Wit-Samson Committee had been highly critical.

“The reports show that the lack of integrity has infiltrated the capillaries of society. One can deduce from the fact that there are no signals that government has even started to draft a plan of approach to remedy the situation that they don’t or insufficiently acknowledge the seriousness and size of the problem and the urgency of it,” stated the minister.

 

Plasterk said that the recommendation in the PwC report to establish an independent gaming oversight board to regulate the issuing and extension of casino permits under the supervision of the Prosecutor’s Office was one of the issues that needed addressing in government’s plan of approach to improve integrity.

 

The minister said it was up to the St. Maarten government to actively work on restoring good governance based on the recommendations of the PwC report and the report of the Wit-Samson committee. “The Netherlands is willing to provide assistance,” he stated. He said he had no reason to doubt the qualifications of the findings of the PwC audit team.

 

When asked by Bosman what was being done to tackle crime and corruption at the island’s government-owned companies, Plasterk replied that criminal investigation and prosecution were up to the local justice authorities.

 

However, he added, the proper execution of these tasks largely depends on the capacity of the justice departments. The recent integrity reports have shown that this capacity is limited. This issue will be included in the justice action plan for St. Maarten that the minister announced during the handling of the draft 2015 Kingdom Relations budget in the Second Chamber on October 1 this year.

 

The Daily Herald