~ Dutch Audit Chamber assesses slow recovery pace ~
THE HAGUE–The St. Maarten government’s lack of expertise and shortage of personnel capacity are the biggest obstacles to St. Maarten’s quick recovery with reconstruction funds from the Netherlands. The National Recovery Programme Bureau is not operational as yet. Little money has actually been spent, which means that the people of St. Maarten are seeing few concrete results more than a year after Hurricane Irma caused mass destruction.
The General Audit Chamber of the Netherlands came to these conclusions in its focus investigation of the Dutch government’s contribution to St. Maarten’s recovery process. The results of this investigation were presented to the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament in a meeting behind closed doors with the members of Parliament’s Permanent Committee for Kingdom Relations on Thursday, after which the report was made public.
The Dutch government made 550 million euros available in November 2017, of which the largest part, 470 million euros, will be spent via the Trust Fund, which is managed by the World Bank until 2025. In total, Hurricane Irma, which hit the island on September 6, 2017, caused an estimated 1.9 billion euros in damage to homes, buildings and infrastructure.
The Dutch government has deposited in total 262 million euros in the Trust Fund up to late November 2018, of which 109 million euros has been assigned to the different recipients that carry out the various projects. “Only a small portion of this amount has been actually spent on these projects,” concluded the Dutch Audit Chamber.
Currently, another 153.5 million euros is being prepared for projects, but so far there have been no binding agreements. This means that more than half of the total Dutch contribution, or 262.5 million euros, has been designated for projects so far.
Assigned have been the funds for a skills and training programme (18.8 million euros), the hospital (20.8 million euros), institutional support (7.5 million euros), home and roof repair (16.5 million euros), utilities (9.7 million euros) and disaster management (12.3 million euros). The funds to assist the private sector (30.7 million euros) and the problems at the dump (21.9 million euros) have been approved.
The financial contribution to the repair of the airport terminal for an amount of 43.9 million euros has been approved in principle. In preparation are a project to improve the waste management (30.7 million euros) and conditional liquidity support for the St. Maarten government (26.3 million euros). The remaining amount is 208.5 million euros.
The St. Maarten government is still working on the formulation of strategic prioritising for the Trust Fund based on which it can be determined whether the money has been correctly spent. The fact that this framework is missing makes it harder to compare current project proposals to future project proposals. The effect is to hamper strategic steering of money-spending.
Mixed opinions
Persons and organisations with whom the team of the Audit Chamber spoke on the island had mixed opinions on their cooperation with the World Bank. While the strict, complex tender procedures of the World Bank ensure that the money is correctly spent, it was found that these same tender procedures are cumbersome.
“The biggest obstacle for a quick recovery is the lack of personnel capacity and expertise in St. Maarten. In order to speed up the recovery, St. Maarten not only needs financial support, but also support in the spending of this money. We concluded that civil servants in St. Maarten felt they needed more assistance from the Netherlands and/or the World Bank,” stated the General Audit Chamber in its 58-page report.
The establishing of the National Recovery Programme Bureau is taking longer than expected. In the meantime, its tasks are being carried out by the Interim Recovery Committee, and the eight committee members have already indicated that they are working under high pressure, also because they have to do their regular jobs for government as well. There is a lack of experienced project managers, engineers and personnel to organise and manage the public tenders. The programme bureau should have a staff of 20.
The St. Maarten government so far has submitted 29 requests for technical support to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations BZK. State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops has honoured 11 of these requests. According to Knops, some of the requests did not relate to reconstruction.
No roof repaired
The Audit Chamber concluded that several projects are delayed. “For example, no roof has been repaired as yet with the money from the Trust Fund. Repairs to the electricity supply and the water storage have been standing still since late October. The World Bank has imposed several conditions on the utility company [GEBE – Ed.] that are aimed at a careful spending of the recovery funding.”
GEBE may not use local market parties, including with which contractors it has worked before, without a public tender. This means that trenching work for the underground cabling cannot be executed by the contractors with which GEBE usually works without a public tender. GEBE may also not order new water tanks from the previous supplier without a public tender. The World Bank has set these requirements to increase the transparency of the spending of the money from the Trust Fund.
Two projects that quickly got off the ground were the financing of the new general hospital for St. Maarten and the skills and training programme. For both projects there was already a plan of execution before the World Bank was contracted by the Dutch government to manage the Trust Fund. As a result, these projects were able to start off quickly.
The Audit Chamber spoke of a “difficult dilemma,” as a balance had to be sought between caution, legitimacy and effectiveness on one side and the needed speed of the recovery on the other. “A consequence of the emphasis on caution is that so far money was especially spent on preparatory work and the financing and sustaining of existing plans. That is why the St. Maarten people are seeing small tangible results of the recovery projects from the Trust Fund.”
General Audit Chamber member Francine Giskes said after Thursday’s meeting in the Second Chamber that it was mostly up to St. Maarten to make the choices and decisions in the recovery process and that if the country wanted assistance, it was the local government’s job to request such.
Giskes emphasised that the Dutch Audit Chamber had not performed an audit on Country St. Maarten, but that it concerned an investigation of the way the Dutch recovery funds were being spent in St. Maarten. The St. Maarten Audit Chamber has no role in the spending of the funds in the recovery process. In the past, the Dutch Audit Chamber also carried out an investigation into the spending of Dutch funds after the 2013 major tsunami in Southeast Asia and the 2015 earthquake in Haiti.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/83635-st-maarten-govt-capacity-major-obstacle-in-recovery
View comments
Hide comments