With the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association, we do wonder about that last minute decision by the Council of Ministers to ditch the national holiday of Saturday, April 30 and to make Tuesday May 3 a national holiday instead.
What surprises most is the timing: the news became available only around 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 28.
Regeren is vooruitzien, is an old piece of Dutch wisdom. We knew like, forever, that April 30 would be a Saturday and we know for sure that civil servants hate this because Saturdays are already days off for them.
Therefore, the Council of Ministers could have looked at the calendar in, say, February, and made the arrangements. That would have given everyone plenty of time to adjust.
The questions that comes before such a decision is however this one. Who benefits from such a change and who is paying the price for it?
Opinion: Fantasy holidays
