To the President of the Senate of the States Date June 17, 2021
Concerns Award of fifth tranche of liquidity support Sint Maarten
Since the beginning of 2020, Sint Maarten, just like Curaçao and Aruba, has received
liquidity support to cope with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 28, I informed your House about the worrying developments regarding the corporate governance of Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) and the decision of the Kingdom Council of Ministers to proceed with the provision of the fifth tranche of liquidity support only after the government of St. Maarten acted decisively enough to structurally repair the problems at the airport and to ensure the successful progress of the project to restore the airport terminal.

The Kingdom Council of Ministers has authorized me to assess, in consultation with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, whether Sint Maarten has acted sufficiently decisively and, if so, to proceed with the provision of liquidity support at that time. In recent weeks, Sint Maarten has worked diligently to restore good governance. The Prime Minister of Sint Maarten informed me and the Royal Schiphol Group (RSG) several times about the state of affairs during this period. In recent years, the RSG has played an essential role in both the recovery project and in safeguarding good governance.

The actions that Sint Maarten has taken to restore good governance at the airport give the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and myself sufficient confidence to proceed with the provision of the fifth tranche of liquidity support. I also take into account the opinion of RSG, which is positive in relation to the steps taken by Sint Maarten.

This means that the fifth tranche of liquidity support of ANG 39.0 million (€ 19.1 million) will be paid out to Sint Maarten as soon as possible. This is urgent because, partly in light of the now very strong negative liquidity position of Sint Maarten, the government of Sint Maarten will no longer be able to pay the civil servants’ salaries without liquidity support at the end of June. Moreover, without liquidity support, Sint Maarten will no longer be able to pay out the wage cost subsidy scheme, with possible consequences

Your feature
business failures and job losses as a result. For these reasons, the government sees an urgent need to pay the fifth installment to Sint Maarten as soon as possible.

Contrary to my previous post after the decision of the
Kingdom Council of Ministers of April 23, submitted to you in a memorandum of amendment to the first supplementary budget. Normally, new policy is implemented after the States General has authorized the budget law. Since the postponement of implementation of this urgent measure, which is in the interest of the central government, cannot wait for formal authorization from both Houses of the States General, the cabinet will start the implementation of the measure after you have received this memorandum of amendment. I will send you the memorandum of amendment early next week and expect to transfer the funds to Sint Maarten at the end of next week. This is done in accordance with paragraph 2 of Article 2.27 of the Accounts Payable Act 2016.

The assessment framework for risk schemes for the fifth tranche of liquidity support is
28 April already shared with your room.

The State Secretary for the Interior and Kingdom Relations,

drs. R.W. Knops

Ministry of
Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations
Date
June 15, 2021