NOSTRADAMUS's blog

A Dutch uncle is somebody who wags their finger and tells people what they should do. A Dutch Party is a party where the host is drunk before the guests arrive. Observers of the 2010 Heineken Regatta have formulated a new expression: a Dutch Race. A Dutch Race is one in which handicaps are so lop-sided that anybody in a bathtub and a mouthful of rum can win this world reputed event.

For example, the international crew members on board the German sailing vessel Nel Maria were not too pleased with the intrinsic absurdity of the handicap system. Having passed the finishing line in first place first on three occasions and scored high in league position during the other races, their disappointment at not winning the sailing trophy was reasonable to say the least.

Marty’s Giro in Simpson Bay is a great place to eat on the island. But this Thursday evening, the Rainbow Warriors (read local gay society) that congregate there for a discrete tête-à- tête got more than they could chew. Some local rich female (with a bad hairstyle and an inebriated proboscis) who unwisely bought land in Statia declared her distaste for the practice of zoning on the Historical Gem.

Unfortunate for her was the presence of a local historian who reaffirmed the importance of conserving the Island’s historical heritage and avoiding the catastrophic over development that has defaced the identity and thus image of St. Maarten.

“You are just a gay asshole,” she voiced with self proclaimed authority.

Needless to say, the camp followers were perturbed about the remark and became feint as robins. They referred to Marty, the owner for some kind of immediate resolution. None was forthcoming.

Nostradamus was also perturbed. Rich people have a habit of being oblivious to feelings and the eminent sear identifies with emotional damage especially when its source originates from the intellect of an ant. His mind recalls that wonderful retort of Winston Churchill when confronted by Lady Astor and her accusation that he was drunk. “Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Law is a delicate institution and nowhere else than on St. Maarten can its interpretation be subject to scrutiny and sometimes frivolous scandal. Step forward Mister Richard Gibson who is widely rumored to have boxed off his second wife by building a complete dividing wall that runs through the middle of his luxurious Maho house.

The incidence of physical and thus media exposure of the celebrity variety is an increasing phenomenon on the island. Allegations that Julian Rollocks was parading in his underpants in October last year have been followed up with front page titillation via Mister Gibson’s own newspaper that the DP secretary is “broke” and has “serious issues with spelling and grammar”. For Mister G, as he is affectionately known, the boot is now clearly on the other foot!

"Spring time for Hitler and Germany, Winter for Poland and France." The libretto from The Producers is well known. It embraces a culture to which the Vatican during the WWII remains devoted in silence. Given the awful human loss in Haiti, the Pope has very little to offer the many living catholic souls that are faced with desperation.

His immediate interest in surviving Haitian clerics and an historical diatribe belies a higher spiritual identification with the suffering and their families.

Where was the voice of comfort? Where was the action for hope and understanding?

Yesterday there was a terrible tragedy. An earthquake decimated thousands of lives in Haiti. And the Vatican remained silent.

Mea culpa?

A political system must be under-pinned by a valid legal system. Over the next two weeks, Nostradamus predicts that details will be revealed about two of the most prominent legal minds on the island who have used their position to massage the rule of law to falsify documents and acquire land and title.

“Telnet is your local Internet Services Provider, recognized as St. Maarten’s most reliable Internet Company.” Really?
My internet service from this company works only 40% of the time. It even failed me on Xmas day. Disconnections are frequent and lengthy. Their technicians are few, absent or only available perhaps during weekday office hours.

So woe to any business that needs Telnet services after 5.00 pm or at weekends when their connections are often down. Most reliable?

Why do we become so frustrated with Telnet and all TeLem companies?

We expect our politicians to speak and think intelligently and preferably to engage both faculties at the same time. Joke or ‘catch’ of the week is William Marlin, leader of the National Absent Party.

To illustrate exactly how absent his mind was, he told a high ranking group of cruise line executives that he “looked forward to many more visits from Oasis of the Seas and thanked Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. for “bringing the Titanic of the 21st century to St. Maarten.”

Consultants are the most wonderful people in the world. They have a financial urge to prescribe rather than to describe. But nowhere else than in St. Maarten, are these obedient professionals so adept at presenting the answers that politicians want to hear and the answers that their electorate need to hear. But timing can be just as important as content.

Heyliger and his gasification plant are a case in question. Step forward Windward Roads Infrastructure as the company touted by government paid consultants as most likely to be able to undertake the complex project of building such an industrial edifice.

Where is the Daily Herald these days? Their editorial standards have reached new lows, their Weekender is mostly a solid ragbag of text that has been copied and pasted from the internet, their letter page now comprises almost entirely of US based correspondence (Oppenheimer, Krauthammer et al.) and their local news reporting is often too late and wildly inaccurate. It has become a handout. At 50 cents, the paper is not worth the paper upon which it is printed.

Heraldic History may well reveal answers for the descent into this quality quagmire. The medium was set up as a fighting tabloid by Roger Snow when island news was controlled by the establishment and Snow thought very differently about all that. Snow succeeded in changing the media landscape and the status quo. Fast forward many years and enter Courtney Gibson whose sensitivities are clearly pro-establishment and whose reaction to editorial criticism borders on the neurotic.

The island’s promotional activities have taken a turn for the worst. Frans Richardson who does not have a clue about the travel business other than how air miles work, is having a public tiff with Interreps. Media watchers will remember that this company was hired by Roy the Boy Marlin to "PR" things in The Benelux. However, the company’s feeble efforts have not impressed Richardson. Furthermore, Lydia Haveman, the company’s owner is so desperate that she is talking openly to the local press about her desire to continue writing invoices and lunching on the taxpayers behalf.

Talking openly to the press about her disappointment? Wait a moment! I thought she should be talking to the press about the island’s USP’s. Point is she knows she is on to a lost cause. If she had developed an editorial program that generated enough column inches to justify her fees, she would not be facing the wrath of Roy’s namesake who probably has another relative in mind to do exactly the same as Interreps. Nothing, that is.

Is it illegal for an island lawyer to falsify documents of title and present them to the bank for credit facilities? If this is illegal, what are the criminal repercussions?

The front page announcement in the Herald this week that the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau continues to move full speed ahead by hiring Louis Peters to head up its New York Office will provide endless amusement to media watchers on the island. The Herald well known for its faithful duplication of press announcements has clearly neither massaged a word nor questioned why this public appointment was handled so privately?

To those who work in the media, St. Maarten has long been a joke when it comes to promoting its identity. Today, millions of dollars are now chasing an off-island PR bureau. Once hired this supposedly fast track agency was so competent that they even hired a third party to carry out branding activities. So far the only serious writing that has seen the light of day is that of endless invoices and prolific expense declarations. The advisers are advising the advisers.

Politicians often maintain that they lead by example. Now that the incoming Aruban AVP led government has agreed to a Dutch investigation into past corruption, human examples for examination may be difficult to find. Or will they? Having once tried to contact Nelson Oduber, former prime minister by phone, I was confidently informed that his secretary was never present.

“How could this be?” I asked the telephone operator with a modicum of concern.

“What do you expect? She be his sister in law!” she fired back.

Rightly or wrongly, people in power often forget the past as if focused on the day to day realities of decision making. In Sint Maarten where road projects and gasification contracts are self-awarded, there are salutary lessons and examples to be learned from the past.

Commissions for commissioners may well be difficult to locate but time and tenacity wait for no man. Fiscal and financial landscapes are changing rapidly. Even when bogus companies, trusts and apparent third party dealmakers disguise the true nature of transactions, detection is but an arm’s length away.

For such island politicians and attendant dishonest lawyers, the decision to leave the public platform should be immediate. The French have coined a phrase with which I am sure Hero Brinkman is most acquainted:

L’histoire se repete (history repeats itself).

Save our Great Salt Pond maybe a far cry for the DP (Dead Party) to champion since they were clearly deaf during the whole process of its acceptance.

As I predicted at the start of this year, a new party will be formed. Heyliger is looking for a new name for this party. I have one. How about Cocktail Party for when he actually gets his hands on the Road Fund sometime soon and before the next election? For the moment and unlike his uncle, he will not be able to exchange fibs for fridges on the floor of the EXCO.

However, the National Absent Party is creating a rod for its own back. I predict that Sarah will return to public office despite her amnesia for the good governance policy that was worked out in 2002 and has never seen the light of day.

But there is a but. Supposing the new DP actually embraced the green issues and occupied centre and salt pond ground. Perhaps then the message would become the media instead of vice versa.
That really would be a revolution...

Commissioner Heyliger at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Midas Roundabout really created quite a few smiles. He was ranting against The Netherlands with statements about how slow the Dutch were with road development funds for the island - given all their regulations and soon and so forth.

The real truth of the matter is the Commissioner of Public Works is really interested in Private Works which is why he wants to create his very own Road Fund. This piggy bank will be totally divorced from Government and thus public control or accountability.

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Our Harbour Commissioner just missed the Monopoly jackpot last week with the decision of the court to let St. Maarten Port Services continue their contract with TROPICAL until 2010. But after then, the new agency he will be able to collect USD 200 million per annum and without going to jail.

In short the commissioner’s family will eventually have control over all the agencies around the harbour and 80 percent of everything that enters the port. The only untimely obstacle in the Grand Plan is the premature building that has sprung up in Port Blanche to take over as admin center for the family stevedoring business that St. Maarten Port Services has lost after 25 years of faultless service. It is strange that the countless alien workers on the building project were not inspected by the boys in blue? The Government’s new labour Policy is clearly not set in stone particularly if that stone work is carried out by Windward Islands Road or Infra or Government Ditch and Drain contractors for that matter!

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O dear, we now have two Chambers of Commerce on the island: the Comprehensive Business Association that represents the interest of a large and growing number of disatisfied business people on St. Maarten and the official Incomprehensible chamber of commerce that represents nobody except the wishes of government. The notion that the latter organisation should represent the wishes of the private sector not the public sector is by the way.

The contrast could not be greater as witnessed by the silence observed by the Incomprehensible Chamber of Commerce in relation to its position over the Labour Policy issue. Having made a complete fool of itself in public by allying itself to the new Policy without sounding out its possible implications for its own members, its President, Glen Carty now wades into the budget for tourist advertising debacle.

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Finance Minister Ersila de Lannooy has been shaking the civil service box quite vociferously over the last few days. Life might be all about death and taxes but the officers from the tax inspectorate in St. Maarten are not quite ready to die from overwork. They want parity with their colleagues in Curacao who have been awarded a 25 percent performance bonus.

But Minister Lannoy has other ideas about their worth. Perhaps she has heard that they work half a day as commercial tax consultants and the other half day checking what they have already filled in!

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Comedy and corruption often go hand in hand as witnessed by the creative extent as to how the public purse is skimmed. This Saturday, no exception was afforded this tendency by The Daily Herald and the Today newspaper.

A jubilant photo of Theo Heyliger is shown in the Herald’s Business Week in Review. The public works commissioner is presiding over the first working together between the two biggest construction firms on the island: MNO Vervat and Windward Roads Infrastructure.

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Given the start to the New Year and in the absence of quatrains, NOSTRADAMUS has his own predictions for the year ahead within the context of the new Labour Policy.

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www.worldlicenseplates.com

It is indeed interesting that the company that has won the Number Plate contract is not registered as a member of the Chamber of Commerce in its own right, does not have an official telephone number or is not known at large by business leaders on this island. The reason quoted for this winning contract over a Curacao based firm was that the funds would be kept on Sint Maarten. This is indeed strange when so often public tenders are organised only to be won by foreign firms with similar dubious corporate credentials...

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