GREAT BAY--Minister of Finance Marinka Gumbs on Wednesday asked Member of Parliament Sjamira Roseburg to share her draft legislation on personalized license plates so that the proposal can be followed up with the legislative lawyers of the Department of Legal Affairs, providing an example of the type of cooperation Roseburg has been urging between Parliament and government to avoid duplicating legislative work.
The exchange took place during the 2026 budget debate when Roseburg explained that she had already been working on amendments to the Motor Vehicle Tax Ordinance and was putting the final touches on her own initiative legislation, but wanted to establish whether the Ministry of Finance had already started a similar legislative process.
Roseburg said her reason for repeatedly asking ministers to identify their legislative priorities and initiatives is to prevent MPs and ministries from working separately on the same legislation without knowing what the other is doing.
She told Parliament that if a ministry has already started a legislative process, an MP working on the same subject should know so that the work can be coordinated rather than duplicated. Conversely, where Parliament has already advanced a draft and government has not yet begun, the work can be shared and developed further together.
It was against that background, and drawn to a question MP Egbert Doran asked about the same issue, that Roseburg informed the Minister about her progress on the legislation, explaining that she had already made adjustments to the relevant legislation and was preparing it for submission.
Minister Gumbs responded by directly asking Roseburg to share the draft with the ministry.
“I want to ask MP Roseburg to please share her draft and we will follow up with the legislative lawyers of the Department of Legal Affairs,” Gumbs said.
The exchange reflected the broader point Roseburg made throughout the budget debate that Parliament and the Council of Ministers should communicate more consistently about legislative initiatives. She has argued that MPs, as co-legislators, should know what laws government is preparing, particularly when MPs themselves may be researching and drafting legislation on the same subjects.
Roseburg’s proposal on personalized license plates is already well advanced. The draft legislation submitted with her work is an 11-page initiative national ordinance to amend the Motor Vehicle Tax Ordinance and formally introduce the possibility for vehicle owners to obtain personalized license plates for an additional fee. The document is dated August 2026 and identifies Roseburg as the initiating MP.
The draft is based in part on the General Audit Chamber’s May 2021 mini-audit on the implementation of personalized license plates. That report found that St. Maarten’s existing ordinance does not provide a legal basis for personalized plates and identified such a system as a potential structural source of additional government revenue.
Roseburg’s proposal would create a new legal framework allowing qualifying vehicle owners to request personalized combinations of letters and numbers. Under the draft, combinations could contain up to six characters and could not duplicate existing plates, create confusion with combinations reserved for police, emergency services, government or diplomatic vehicles, or contain wording considered offensive, discriminatory or otherwise inappropriate.
The proposal also provides for an additional fee on top of the regular motor vehicle tax and license plate charge. The precise fee would be established by ministerial decision and could vary depending on the type of vehicle or type of propulsion.
Roseburg’s draft goes beyond simply creating customized number combinations. It also addresses the transfer of a personalized number to another vehicle owned by the same holder, the circumstances under which a number would expire and become available again, revocation where incorrect information was supplied, and the right to administrative legal review of decisions made under the proposed system.
A separate provision would allow the minister, under defined circumstances, to approve license plates with non-standard dimensions for vehicles whose factory specifications cannot accommodate St. Maarten’s standard plate size. The draft requires that such plates maintain equivalent readability and reflective qualities for enforcement purposes.
The explanatory memorandum accompanying Roseburg’s proposal compares St. Maarten’s position with Aruba, Curaçao and the BES islands and examines how personalized or person-linked plate systems operate elsewhere in the Kingdom. It notes that Aruba has offered personalized plates since 2013 and, according to the Audit Chamber figures cited in the draft, generated Afl. 556,000 from personalized plates in 2020.
Using historical St. Maarten motor vehicle tax figures and the Aruba experience as an indication, the draft estimates that personalized license plates could create an additional recurring revenue stream for the country, although it makes clear that the projections must still be updated using current figures from the Finance Directorate and Tax Administration before final submission.
Roseburg’s draft also states that further work is required on production arrangements, costs for alphanumeric plates, current consolidated legislative references and confirmation of certain implementation details. It provides, however, a developed legislative starting point rather than simply proposing the concept in principle.
