SIMPSON BAY:--- As the mismanagement of finances at the Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIAE) continues to be the talk of the town, SMN News has decided to dig deeper to see how far the Supervisory Board and the Managing Director of PJIAE have gone with their unusual transactions.
Obtained from the Kadaster's Office is the deed of Turtle House property located at Airport Road 114, Simpson Bay. PJIAE bought the property from Albert Claudius Wathey on June 26th, 2013 for a whopping $2,750,000.00. The buyer (PJIAE) bought the long lease land rights of 1,220 square meters of land which will end on May 27th, 2040. It also includes the long lease of 2,097 square meters of land which expires on December 8th, 2070. Acting on behalf of PJIAE was the current Managing Director of PJIAE Regina Labega.
Click here to view PJIAE's Deed of Purchase for Turtle House.
It should be noted that Pennfold Consultancy was hired by the Central Government in the early 1970's to work on a development plan for St. Maarten. Back then, Pennfold in their report stated that the Government of St. Maarten should not distribute the land around PJIAE to anyone because the long lease land which belongs to government will be needed for the future expansion of PJIAE. Despite the advice Pennfold gave, the persons in the Executive Council back then distributed several parcels of the land to mostly members of one family.
Now that PJIAE is busy with the expansion, PJIAE has to use its monies to buy back these long lease land for further development of the airport. The people's patrimony was given out to members of a certain family who pay government some pittance every year to hold on to the rights of their long lease until they can turn around and sell it back to government for millions.
SMN News also obtained two other deeds to show the trend of self-enrichment. The first deed obtained from the Kadaster's Office shows the head of Domain Affairs Marieke Van Zadelhoff confirming in March 2011 that Albert Claudius Wathey was acting as the managing director of Turtle House and that the Minister of VROMI Theodore Heyliger granted Albert Claudius Wathey the long lease for the land. The former Minister did so on December 8th, 2010. The parcel of land granted to Wathey measured 2097 square meters.
Click here to view long lease granted to Albert Claudius Wathey.
The second deed SMN News obtained from the Kadaster's Office is one that was registered on October 5th, 1994 where Dorothy Eileen Lista born Wathey handed over another parcel of land to Albert Claudius Wathey. All the long lease land on the three leases obtained by SMN News are for Turtle House. It measures 400 square meters.
Click here to view the deed of the 400 square meters of land given to Albert Claudius Wathey.
