PHILIPSBURG – Minister of Finance Richard Gibson was expected to meet with his counterpart in Curaçao on Wednesday, August 10, in Curaçao to finalize matters pertaining to the division of assets between St. Maarten and Curaçao, and for St. Maarten to gets its fair share.
Minister Gibson was expected to leave the island on Wednesday to meet with the Minister overnight and return to St. Maarten on Thursday morning – less than 24 hours later. “I informed the Council of Ministers (Tuesday) that I will make arrangements to fly down to Curaçao (Wednesday). I already contacted the Minister of Finance of Curaçao, let him know that I want to come down to have a meeting with him to discuss this issue as well as other issues. I will be gone for less than 24 hours because my plan is to go down (Wednesday), have dinner with him (Wednesday night); discuss all the issues and fly back (Thursday morning),” Gibson said.
He said payment is not due until the end of December this year, and he is making certain that this is done to meet the financial targets of the 2016 budget.
The last attempt at meeting with the Minister and other officials via videoconference was unsuccessful as the Curaçao Finance Minister was a no show. Earlier this year, the Minister reported that St. Maarten is interested in acquiring two Curaçao-based companies it has shares in.
“One of them is CENPOST, which is a company that remains after the dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles. We have approximately 7.8% in that company. It’s a company basically operating in Curaçao. The Minister has expressed interest in acquiring the shares that St. Maarten has in that company, which we are going to look at,” Minister Gibson said at the time.
The other company has about NAf. 4 million, which is to be shared between Curaçao and St. Maarten.
