PHILIPSBURG:---- Member of Parliament Sarah Wescot Williams who is representing the Democratic Party in Parliament dispatched a letter to griffier of Parliament and copied to MP Frans Richardson to request the representatives of the St. Maarten Harbor Group Companies (SMHGC) to submit to Parliament on Thursday the contract SMHGC has with Checkmate Security Company and all other relevant information regarding the contract the SMHGC has with Checkmate.
On Thursday the Minister of TEATT Claret Conner and representatives of the SMHGC will be attending the TEATT committee meeting.
The request came after two articles were printed in the media regarding the huge increase the SMHGC has in its 2015 budget for outside security with Checkmate.
On Tuesday the management of Checkmate Security reacted to the first article citing that the company owes SZV Naf.2.3M, they also outlined the services they are providing to the SMHGC which they said has to be in place to meet ISPS standards.
As soon as the response from Checkmate was published the former owner of Checkmate Michael Kuiperi reacted by stating that Checkmate has a contract with the SMHGC which is valid until December 2015 that include an increase. Kuiperi said when he was managing Checkmate he could hardly get a 10cents increase from the Harbor. He further stated that the statements made by the current management is incorrect since the company did get increases over the years from SMHGC.
However, it became clear since Kuiperi's reaction that the SMHGC has to give government and Parliament some sort of accountability as to why a huge increase has been mentioned in their 2015 budget when they have a valid contract until the end of 2015.
MP Christopher Emmanuel was on a radio program Tuesday night stating that he intends to ask the SMHGC to make known to the people of St. Maarten who are the shareholders of Checkmate Security because it has been rumored that politicians and the CEO of the SMHGC are shareholders of the company but to date none of the rumors can be substantiated.
