~ Company must provide work for the government as their punishment, Prosecutor’s Office lied when requested to comment.~
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Attorney General Jaan Spaans and the Prosecutor’s Office along with the Raad voor de Rechtshandhaving (RvRH) (Law Enforcement Council) have decided to impose a fine of $2M on Windward Roads and also exempt the company from all criminal investigations and prosecution in the LARIMAR investigation.
While Windward Roads received the ‘sweetheart’ deal in the LARIMAR corruption investigation they also got the opportunity to provide work for the government of St. Maarten amounting to $2M rather than paying the fine immediately.
Windward Roads it is understood will be working along with the Department of VROMI to execute several sewage projects. The Dutch company is not allowed to receive any interest and or profits on the projects, however, there is nothing in place to stop Windward Roads from inflating their work rates for each of the project they are assigned to work on.
On February 14th, 2018, the TBO and RST raided the offices of Windward Roads and also the home of Jan Hendricks Boekaar while they also seized Boekaar’s home.
In a press release issued by the Prosecutor’s Office on February 14th, 2018, stated that the anti-corruption team executed two searches in homes and one in a company on St. Maarten, and a home was seized. Two suspects they said were arrested, one being Member of Parliament Frans Richardson.
The release further states that the Larimar investigation has to do with bribery of civil servants, politicians and persons in the construction sector among other things. The same investigation allowed the investigators to conduct searches on January 24th, 2018, at a construction company on St. Maarten (Windward Roads) which led to the arrest of Jan Hendricks Boekaar the director of the said company. TBO officers also searched building belonging to the company that same day.
These searches and arrests led to the arrest of Ronald Maasdam in the Netherlands who was flown to St. Maarten and back to the Netherlands where he remains in custody. After these arrests and investigations, Member of Parliament Theodore Heyliger was implicated in these so-called corruption investigations since Maasdam worked for him while he was Commissioner in 1998 as a technical assistant.
Maasdam also worked as the middleman for several constructions companies that are doing business on St. Maarten, those companies include Ballast Nedam International BV, Devcon TCI Ltd, Windward Roads BV, Volker Stevin Caribbean NV among others.
While Heyliger was charged for bribery it is clear that Heyliger has been implicated in other investigations which the Prosecution will make known if and when they arrest him since they already got the green light from the Court of Appeals to prosecute Heyliger.
SMN News contacted the Spokespersons for the Prosecutor’s Office on St. Maarten and Curacao requesting answers to several questions about the fine issued to Windward Roads. After several hours, Roderick Gouverneur said that after speaking with the Prosecutor dealing with the case, he said the Openbaar Ministerie (OM) is busy negotiating with Windward Roads and until an agreement is signed they are unable to comment on the details. Gouverneur said that the suspect, Jan Hendrik Boekaar will be prosecuted sometime in 2019.
It should be noted that the OM already sealed an agreement with Windwards Roads since St. Maarten is already putting a list of projects that Windward Roads will work on as their form of punishment and while the Prosecutor chose to say the negotiations are still ongoing and there is no sealed agreement SMN News learned that the Prosecutor’s Office along with the office of the Attorney General chose to withheld the information from the general public.
http://www.smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-martin-news/30756-exclusive-windward-roads-fined-2m-and-exempted-from-all-criminal-investigations-and-prosecution.html
