PHILIPSBURG:--- Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs announced in the Council of Minister's press briefing on Wednesday that the COHO is not yet up for debate at this current stage. Jacobs said as Prime Minister of St. Maarten this draft law can only be shared after it has gone through the process. She said on Friday while in parliament she received the advice however, she is not allowed to share the details of that advice. Jacobs said that the Council of Advice on St. Maarten also issued advice that is in line with the Council of State. “With the advice from the Council of State shows that St. Maarten was right all along and that the country has now been vindicated.”
The Prime Minister made clear that she cannot be held responsible for the leak in the Netherlands but assured that when the draft law reaches the parliament of St. Maarten it will not be as it is currently.
Prime Minister Jacobs further said that St. Maarten is busy preparing a task force to handle the concerns of the Council of State. Jacobs said that she is currently in discussions with her counterparts of Curacao and Aruba as their way forward.
St. Maarten’s Prime Minister said that with this advice, St. Maarten has been vindicated so are Aruba and Curacao and they all now have an opportunity to sit at the table and come to a true consensus on financial monitoring. She reminded that the Government of St. Maarten was the only government is the only government that had submitted a counter-proposal to the Netherlands. She said St. Maarten has agreed to have an entity that will support and monitor the country in the reforms that the country agreed to without the excessive powers.
Jacobs said have been voicing its concerns since July 2020 and the government did pose questions and made recommendations and it only in December 2020, when St. Maarten exhausted all its efforts and received a mandate from the parliament of St. Maarten that the government of St. Maarten signed on to the COHO so that the country could have received liquidity support.
Click here to read advice from the Council of State.
