Grisha wants to know why the Gov’t is not working with APS | SOUALIGA NEWSDAY

SINT MAARTEN (PHILIPSBURG) - With the General Pension Funds of Sint Maarten (APS) projected “strong positive returns” on investments in 2022 Member of Parliament for the United People’s Party UP, the honourable Grisha Heyliger-Marten has raised questions as to why the Government of St. Maarten continues to refuse to work with the local pension fund on development projects such as the new Government Administration Building and other much-needed projects.

According to MP Heyliger-Marten Government can solve much of its parking problems in its financial capital Philipsburg, and save nearly one hundred million per year in rent by turning over the former Government Administration Building and Post Office to the APS for them to develop for parking, an official Parliament House and new Government Offices.

Putting several government offices in one building will centralize many daily activities and make doing business less time-consuming for all.

She said, “Working with the APS on local developments to benefit the people of St. Maarten and reduce the Government’s debt is the clear choice raising the question of “why is the government so unwilling to act in the interest of the people of St. Maarten?”

MP Heyliger-Marten issued a press release Sunday congratulating APS (Algemeen Pensioenfonds Sint Maarten) for achieving the exceptional financial results it announced on Friday despite the Global Pandemic COVID-19.

However, she wasted no time and raised a number of questions about the government’s seeming unwillingness to capitalize on opportunities for investments. “The APS has shown that it has the financial ability and the technical know-how to tackle many of St. Maarten’s biggest problems. Many of these problems directly impede our ability to return to being an economic powerhouse in the Caribbean. It, therefore, baffles me that the Government would refuse to give them [APS] the opportunity to invest locally,” said MP Heyliger.

Country St. Maarten is presently cash strapped and indebted to the APS, and as a means of coming to their aid, APS has offered to help Government reduce its debt through a “land for debt swap." This will benefit St. Maarten in multiple ways including creating increased economic activities through jobs that will give our people back the spending power and help them take care of their families’ financial needs.

The APS’s goal is to develop the property it receives from the Government to the benefit of the people of St. Maarten, which is another win for St. Maarten. With St. Maarten’s financial resources being as scarce as they are, the Country depends largely on Liquidity Support from The Netherlands to meet its obligations especially since the global Pandemic COVID-19, which have several conditions attached to them.

MP Heyliger-Marten pointed out that with the Government of St. Maarten deciding to work with the APS it means that Government will be directly contributing to securing the Civil Servants Pension fund. With the present requirements from the CFT and the outside influence on every decision, St. Maarten considers, it has made it hard for us to move forward and recover from the devastation of Hurricane Irma in 2017. Considering all of this the "government has no good reason not to act now, work with APS and save St. Maarten."