PHILPSBURG: ---- The Prime Minister of St. Maarten Marcel Gumbs and the leader of the UPP Theodore Heyliger seems to have more problems on their hands now that the Supervisory Board of GEBE made it clear that they will not vacate their positions.
SMN News learnt that the leader of the UPP contacted the board members and asked them to make their positions available, the contact it is understood was made on Thursday last week, by evening that same day the chairman of the supervisory board Rene Richardson sought legal representation and basically sent out a press release stating that the company’s COO Romelio Maduro does not have any contract with GEBE and is currently on non-active duty.
The supervisory board of directors sent out a four-page memo to the staff and other stakeholders of GEBE informing them that they sent a report to the shareholder representative informing them why they took the decision not to renew Maduro’s contract.
The memo basically states that the internal auditor found a number of irregularities when an internal investigation was conducted on the COO. They also mentioned in the memo that Maduro does not have any rights to be on GEBE’s property since he does not have a valid contract to represent the government owned company.
Presently GEBE is busy conducting another investigation on the bidding process at the company. SMN News learnt that bids for projects at GEBE are done by invitation and there are a number of instances where certain contractors would provide GEBE with an estimate and when the contract is awarded to them the cost of the project would increase by 50% or more. It is not yet known if the investigation on the bidding process has been completed and if the supervisory board will be taking measures against the department that deals with the bids at GEBE.
