SMN News learnt that the executive council of St. Maarten submitted the budget on August 13 to meet the August 15 deadline with 100 million guilders in deficit and they also submitted a plan as to how the government intends to fill in the deficit.
Reliable sources say that the CFT made clear in its letter that the budget will not be accepted with such a huge deficit. SMN News further learnt that the federal government over the years has been providing St. Maarten with bogus figures as to how much it costs to maintain the police department, the prison and the other departments that are being transferred to St. Maarten when the island gets it country status on October 10 2010.
Spokesman for the CFT Gert Bergsma confirmed to SMN News that they indeed sent a letter to the Executive Council of St. Maarten on Wednesday requesting more information. The spokesman said the budget presented to them did not meet the necessary requirements laid down by law when it comes to income and spending. The CFT spokesman also confirmed that the 2011 budget that was presented to them by St. Maarten has a 100 million guilders deficit but crucial information on the budget was lacking.
He said when St. Maarten presented the budget two weeks ago they acknowledged there was missing information and that it will be sent to them within two weeks, which expires on Friday August 27th.
Even though commissioner of Finance Xavier Blackman received the official letter from the CFT on Wednesday he told members of the media on Thursday that the 2011 budget was balanced and that there were wild stories circulating about the 100 million deficits, one he considers to be humongous. Blackman said one has to understand that budgets are work in progress because the minute they receive an additional expenditure or income everything changes. However, Blackman acknowledged they encountered some issues regarding the expenses coming to St. Maarten from the federal government transfer.
It is understood that when the finance department and its staff did the calculation they realized that St. Maarten would find itself in a hole financially. The source further explained that government decided they would have made budget cuts by shifting monies around. An example given was that government felt removing part of the operational cost and cutting expenses would have done the job but the CFT said that was impossible while saying these cuts are more like wishful thinking since it is not realistic neither is it well documented.
SMN News learnt that with the new development country St. Maarten or 10/10/10 is in real jeopardy because Holland can well say that St. Maarten is not able to shoulder her expenses and such delay the constitutional process. One of the questions politicians now have to answer is how are they going to sustain the new country without enough money. One political figure said that the new development can well throw a monkey wrench in the entire process even though the island is gearing up for early elections to be held on September 17th. "This new information can be considered as political dynamite but none of the political parties that are contesting the election have a solution as to how they would remedy the situation." "While the opposition would want to jump on this for political mileage they too do not have inkling or plan to deal with a situation such as this one. They are all like children playing in a garden innocently." The focus for politicians right now is for them to say how they would finance country St. Maarten because the island definitely cannot afford it. Efforts made to reach commissioner Blackman on Thursday afternoon proved futile as he did not answer his phones.
