Figures Suggested by Leonard False; WINAIR Jobs on the Line Due to False Accusations
PHILIPSBURG:--- Michael Ferrier, former Chairman of the WINAIR ADHOC Committee, in a statement today has lashed out at UPP Member of Parliament Johan Leonard for "RECKLESSLY ENDANGERING THE JOBS OF 126 WINAIR EMPLOYEES". On Friday August 8th, 2014, Leonard issued a Press Release announcing he had sent a letter to the President of Parliament through whom he posed numerous questions to Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams, the Shareholder Representative of St. Maarten's National Airline, regarding an alleged exorbitant debt WINAIR would have with a Guadeloupe company from whom it "Wet-leases" ATR aircraft for the airline's new routes, some of which have in the mean time been discontinued.
While Ferrier acknowledges the right of the MP as a Representative of the People to ask any question regarding decisions, the decision making process and the results of those decisions in and by Government owned companies, he is highly critical of Leonard's MO in this case; "While it is common knowledge this MP has little, if any, business acumen, even a high school drop-out knows that by publicly questioning the level of a certain (real, or as in this case, fictitious) extremely high debt of a company, one promotes the risk of other creditors of that company to take fiscal and/or legal actions to safe-guard their interest, which in turn can trigger a "run" on the company's assets with all disastrous consequences one can imagine, including bankruptcy and loss of jobs. On St. Maarten WINAIR presently employs a staff of 126 mostly permanent/full-time professionals," commented Ferrier. Ferrier continued by wondering why the UPP MP could not first have picked up the phone and called either the CEO or the CFO, both Managing Directors of the company and verified the figure before coming out in great drama about "a supposed debt of US $ 1.4 Million" owed to a Guadeloupe based airline from whom the ATR aircraft is being leased; "When I called the WINAIR CFO to verify the amount thrown out by MP Johan Leonard, I was told that as per August 8, 2014, WINAIR had a payable to the Guadeloupe airline of US $ 472,960 and a receivable from the same company in the amount of US $ 359,503.60, netting out a normal, ongoing trade-debt to the French airline company of US $ 113,456.40, a far cry from the figure quoted by the UPsetting MP", Ferrier was quoted as saying. He went on to question why MP Leonard chose to go this route; "Is it to try and embarrass Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams, who is the Shareholder Rep of WINAIR? Or is it to incite other WINAIR Creditors into actions to cripple the National Airline so that the road can be paved for possible UPP-friendly investors to establish a new, long talked about St. Maarten Airline?" Ferrier concluded.
In a related comment, Ferrier, who is a candidate on the Democratic Party's list for the upcoming Parliamentary elections, expressed disappointment in the decision of one of St. Maarten's leading daily newspapers to contribute their two cents to UP party MP Johan Leonard's reckless and damaging public questioning of WINAIR when they added fuel to Leonard's bogus fire with their Saturday, August 9th Editorial by stating that; "The editorial staff could have done some investigations themselves before jumping onto MP Leonard's bandwagon, could they not?" asked Ferrier.
DP Press Release