Dear Editor,
MP Francisco Lacroes has suggested charging motorists 25 or 50 cents to use the Simpson Bay Causeway. He argues that many people crossing the bridge live on the French side, while Sint Maarten pays the cost.
Before he proposes another charge for ordinary people, Mr. Lacroes should tell taxpayers what they have paid for his parliamentary travel.
How many Parlatino and other overseas trips has he taken? What did each flight, hotel stay, and per diem cost? Where are his reports on those trips? What recommendations did he bring home, and what tangible benefit has Sint Maarten received? Parliament lists him on Parlatino committees and has reported his participation in an overseas workshop. Taxpayers are entitled to the costs and results, trip by trip. sxmparliament.org
If 25 cents from a causeway user matters to the public purse, every guilder spent on parliamentary travel matters too. Mr. Lacroes should explain why residents should face a new toll before he has publicly accounted for the value of those trips.
There is also the question of bus and taxi licenses issued while he served in the TEATT minister’s cabinet. The Integrity Chamber found serious failures in the ministry’s 2023 licensing process, including applications handled outside official deadlines, incomplete files and the absence of a Public Transportation Committee. www.integritychamber.sx
Mr. Lacroes should tell the public how many taxi and bus licenses were issued during his tenure, what role he played, and who approved them. He should also explain the remarkable increase in his personal vote: records show 85 votes in 2020 and 312 in the January 2024 election. He received 236 votes in the August 2024 election. What does he attribute that rise to, particularly after the licensing period? This is a question he can answer directly; a change in vote totals alone doesn't explain why people voted for him. sxmelections.com
And if his principle is that people from one side of the island should pay when they use infrastructure maintained by the other, has he thought through where that leads?
Dutch-side taxis, tour buses and VIP transport operators take paying passengers to Marigot, Orient Bay and other French-side destinations. They use French-side roads and public spaces to earn their fares. Should the Collectivité impose an hourly fee on vehicles stopping at the Marigot waterfront? Should it charge tour operators whose passengers use Orient Bay because French-side authorities must maintain public areas and clean up after visitors?
The Collectivité has already reorganized access to the Marigot waterfront taxi facilities and described an annual contribution for their use. That makes Mr. Lacroes’s proposal more than an abstract argument: cross-border transport operators already have reason to pay attention to how each side charges for shared tourism activity. www.com-saint-martin.fr
Sint Maarten and Saint-Martin are one island. People cross the border to work, take their children to school, visit family, shop and earn a living. Once politicians begin treating every crossing as an opportunity to collect money from someone on the “other side,” the charges will not stop with the causeway.
Mr. Lacroes should publish his travel costs and reports, answer questions about the licensing period and his vote increase, and provide an actual calculation of what a 25- or 50-cent toll would raise after collection costs. Until then, he should stop asking residents to pay another fee for moving around their own island.
Sincerely,
Marcella Samson
