PHILIPSBURG–The fleecing of utilities company GEBE and the political manoeuvring with its supervisory board and management by the National Alliance (NA)-led Government have resulted in residents left sitting in the dark, stalling of the economy and the feeling of spending time in a third world country for visitors, said United People’s (UP) party leader Member of Parliament (MP) Theo Heyliger on Sunday.
The country was in the chuckhole of rampant power outages in the past weeks as GEBE grappled with failing equipment, a situation Heyliger had warned about since earlier in 2016. His statement at that time was in response to what he had described as Government “ransacking GEBE for NAf. 31 million with no remorse for the ramifications it will have for the country.”
Heyliger said on Sunday, “Those ramifications came to pass in May of last year when power outages all but crippled the country and have been amped up just over a year later as evident from the spate of outages in the past few weeks.”
He added: “All the praises of balancing the country’s budget came at a cost of depleting GEBE reserves that should have been used for new engines. There is a saying in Dutch, that I will use since being recolonized: ‘Als het niet in de lengte komt dan komt het van de breedte.’”
An apology from the Minister responsible for energy Christophe Emmanuel is not enough, said Heyliger. “What is needed is immediate and decisive action to remedy the situation. The current coalition government with too many chiefs is obviously incapable of running this country; let alone the power company effectively,” he said.
Why has the land for solar not been approved, questioned Heyliger, pointing to the coalition’s “commitment to alternative energy that is boldly stated in their governing programme.”
“The coalition government is strongly built on self-preservation and not country first as some members love to tout. This is evident from the current state of affairs which includes a stagnated economy, stalled projects, deteriorating infrastructure and to top it all off frequent power outages.
All of those factors add up to “the dragging St. Maarten back many steps from where she was as a beacon of prosperity in the Caribbean to the deep dark realms of third world status.”
The UP leader said no one, especially not him, wants to see St. Maarten digress, lose what is left of its competitive economic edge or see the standard of living of the people slip further and further down. “But, it is the job of government to make sure the country is well run and there is progress. Under the present conditions and coalition, not much progress can be seen; after all it is lights out everywhere,” he said.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/68709-heyliger-govt-fleecing-of-gebe-results-in-no-power-for-country-2
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