POND ISLAND–“The past months have taught us that the preparation and implementation of Trust Fund projects takes much more time and capacity than St. Maarten and the Netherlands originally anticipated,” said Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin on Wednesday.
Her comments, made in the Council of Minsters press briefing, follows the release of a study conducted by the Dutch General Audit Chamber on the contribution of the Netherlands to the recovery and reconstruction of St. Maarten. This report recognises some of the challenges the St. Maarten government is experiencing in the recovery process.
The prime minister said the implementation of the projects is “challenging, not because of a lack of will or commitment of the political leaders and civil servants of St. Maarten, but because of the extreme constraint of capacity on the island and the complex procedures of the World Bank.”
The World Bank published its report this week on the Dutch government-financed Trust Fund status, providing a full overview of all activities that have been executed with the World Bank between April and November.
The World Bank’s report acknowledges that the implementation of recovery projects in St. Maarten is challenging due to capacity constraints within government and the limited capacity of the market to respond to the demands for goods, works and services in a flexible and rapid manner.
Romeo-Marlin observed that for some people the Audit Chamber report “may be a reason to question why the Netherlands has chosen the World Bank to assist St. Maarten in the recovery process or to blame the government of St. Maarten for delaying the recovery.”
As prime minister, she said she does not want to turn the recovery process into “a political blame game.” Government “has and will remain fully committed to the cooperation with the World Bank. While we did not choose the World Bank, we are grateful for their support and ongoing commitment.”
All parties should continue to work together toward solutions, without ignoring the challenges that government and its project teams face on a daily basis, she said.
“I’m counting on the people of St. Maarten to protect the recovery process and the cooperation with the World Bank from cheap politics, and I’m counting on the Netherlands and the World Bank to assist the government of St. Maarten as much as possible in providing technical expertise in an expedient manner,” she said.
Government has made “significant progress” in the cooperation with the World Bank in the past six months, and has managed to ensure that more than US $250 million is committed to the preparation and implementation of recovery and resilience projects.
The prime minister said she is especially proud of the Interim Recovery Committee and the ministries, which had no previous experience with the World Bank, but managed to prepare projects at record speed.
The World Bank report notes: “All projects currently under implementation were prepared with utmost urgency, in approximately one-half to one-third of the average time it takes to prepare a World Bank-managed project.”
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/83835-pm-projects-preparation-takes-longer-than-govts-anticipated
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