~ Seven Seas does not pay the fuel clause.~
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of VROMI Egbert Jurendy Doran told members of parliament on Friday during the question hour that GEBE Internal Audit Department is not equipped to conduct an audit of the IT Department of NV GEBE and that the company would have to outsource such a task.
It should be noted that Sharine Daniel has headed the Internal Audit Department of NV GEBE for close to 12 years and only now since the company’s servers were hacked by the black byte ransomware, Daniel has said that her department is not equipped for such a task. One would have to ask why a report of such was not been made over the years and why the audit was not outsourced years ago knowing the dangers of ransomware attacks.
Member of Parliament Reayhon Peterson asked if sanctions will be issued against the persons that are responsible for leaving the company vulnerable the Minister in his response said no decisions on sanctions have been taken and he would have to discuss such with the Supervisory Board of Directors.
Member of Parliament Christopher Emmanuel asked if the water company Seven Seas Waters pays the fuel clause, while the Minister was hesitant in answering the question he disclosed that Seven Seas does not pay the fuel clause and this is due to a contract signed in 1997.
Since the reopening of NV GEBE on June 6th, 2022, the residents of St. Maarten have been faced with a number of challenges from the company, one being the exorbitant bills sent to consumers by email and hand-delivered. The consumers received bills for a period of one year instead of 3 months. Besides the skyrocketing bills, persons who showed up at NV GEBE offices this week to retrieve their bills and to make payments had to wait for hours, yet some were not able to pay those bills because the system was down for hours. Besides that NV GEBE began collecting the payments for these bills but has not been able to issue receipts for the payments. They have been telling their customers that the printers are not functioning. Some employees of NV GEBE told SMN News that they have placed a stop on the payments which were deducted from their salaries because they too are not receiving the receipts after the payments are made.
