PHILIPSBURG:--- Member of Parliament George Pantophlet states that while it is always positive to see that the economy seems to be heading in the right direction, he is wary as for whom the economy is improving. He is remarking on the articles appearing Friday’s edition of the Daily herald which states in its heading “Local Economy resilient in 2014 , outlook 2015 positive and also the recent editorial of Saturday entitled “ What matters most”. His question is what does this translate into and whether persons working in these related sectors will also enjoy this growth or will they continue to be underpaid overworked and immorally but legally given short term labor contracts which by the way the draft ordinance to deal with its abuse is 4 years in the making? Government revenues will continue to be down as long as many who can afford to find loopholes or get preferential treatment when it comes to taxes; case and point the AUC deal of $68 million which would have completely wiped out the deficits of the accumulated over the last 3 or 4 years. The ruling went in their favor of AUC. Government has to find 40 million guilders in its budget per year for 2016, 2017 and 2018. The member of Parliament advices the Minister of Finance to have the legal affairs Departments speed up the process with regards to the dividends policy, the Sintax (alcohol and tobacco), the Casino Fees and Lottery Fees just to name a few. Finally on the issue of the 2000 permits, it will be interesting to get a break down as to how far back these permits go. Some of the questions the MP has are the following: Were the persons notified that their permits are ready? Are the persons still on the island or have they left? Are persons operating without a business license? There were always complaints about to the department being understaffed which caused much delay in processing these permits. Government has to be fair in executing its task.
