Salaries of Government Workers at the mercy of Dutch support
The Dutch is not going to make it easy for none of the Caribbean part of the Kingdom to get financial help from Holland without a set of conditions to be laid down by The Hague. This was already established when the Islands and their governments were accused by members of Parliament in Holland, of demonstrating poor financial Management of public finances and corruption. The latest development in this regard was the request of the Cft for the Kingdom Council of Ministers in Holland to issue an Instruction for Curacao to bring their financial house in order. Now the continuing liquidity support for the budget of St. Maarten even after the Hurricane is been threatened in the Parliament deliberations in the Netherlands.
The government in Holland after the hurricane says they have made over $470 000 000 available as reconstruction funds for St. Maarten in the World Bank. If St. Maarten uses any of it for Liquidity support, they would have to pay it back. Now apparently The Government of St. Maarten is asking the Dutch for liquidity support to have sufficient money in their treasury to pay Salaries etc. That is after they have already gotten 22.75 million Euros in 2017, 15.3 million in 2018 and according to the report coming out of Holland, St. Maarten is saying they still need 100 Million until the budget of 2020 to bail them out.
Holland is once again dangling the carrot. They say, they are willing to help out St. Maarten but not unless the MPs lowered their Salaries. They also want to know what exactly they are doing with this money that will be loaned to them; and the reason for the supervision is to make sure St. Maarten can pay this money back to Holland under the condition that the economy of St. Maarten improves.
Therefore it is not that easy to just ask Holland for help, but how much sacrifice St. Maarten is willing to make when it comes to the conditions placed on the help Holland is willing to offer. The very Salaries of MPs depends on it.
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