~St Maarten’s office in The Hague has an annual budget of about XCG 1.9 million. Auditors found that the government has never clearly established who owns the money as it moves between accounts, who can commit it, or how Parliament can hold those managing it to account.~
PHILIPSBURG:--- For years, Parliament has approved public money to operate the Cabinet of Sint Maarten’s Minister Plenipotentiary in the Netherlands. The money is then transferred to a Dutch private-law foundation, which employs staff and helps run the office. But the government has not established a comprehensive framework governing what happens to those funds after the transfer, according to a General Audit Chamber report published in September.
The Audit Chamber calls this a “longstanding accountability gap.” Its finding is not that the XCG 1.9 million annual allocation has disappeared. Annual financial statements are prepared and audited, and the Cabinet has financial procedures. The finding is that these practices developed without clear formal rules linking the foundation’s management of public money to the government’s duty to account to Parliament.
The gap dates back to Sint Maarten’s early years as a country. Archival records show that in 2011, the government approved a transfer of XCG 500,000 to the foundation, as described in the report. The same records said conditions needed to be set for the Cabinet’s accounting and reporting. The Audit Chamber could not establish that those conditions ever became a formal framework governing the relationship among the government, the Cabinet and the foundation.
Where the money goes
The budget allocation sits under the Ministry of General Affairs. After Parliament approves the national budget, funds are transferred in lump sums to Stichting Kabinet Sint Maarten, a foundation established under Dutch private law. Money then moves to an ABN AMRO account registered in the name of the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary. Some funds move back to the foundation, chiefly for personnel costs.
That route matters because the foundation is a separate legal entity and is not part of the Government of Sint Maarten. The Cabinet, meanwhile, operates as an organization but has no separate legal personality. Auditors could not identify a formal framework specifying who legally owns the funds at each stage, which financial-management rules apply, or who is responsible for oversight.
A figure in the 2024 financial statements brings the problem into focus. They recorded a €533,922 receivable from the foundation: government funds intended for the Cabinet that the foundation still held at year-end. But if the Cabinet has no separate legal personality, the Audit Chamber asks, who legally holds that claim? The report also says it did not find separate financial statements for the foundation, although its articles require it to prepare an annual balance sheet and statement of income and expenses.
The uncertainty extends to property bought with transferred funds. Assets acquired by the foundation appear to be held by the foundation rather than Sint Maarten, auditors wrote. They found no formal arrangement requiring those assets to be registered as public property or transferred to the country.
The Audit Chamber itself had to obtain written consent from the foundation and the Minister Plenipotentiary to examine the foundation’s funds and related financial activities. The public origin of the money alone did not give it direct authority to audit that separate private entity. For the auditors, that need for consent illustrates the weakness in the oversight arrangement.
Who has authority to spend?
The audit identified a second issue: the difference between having an approved budget and having legal authority to enter into obligations on behalf of the country.
The most recent mandate register the auditors identified, published in September 2025, does not list either the Minister Plenipotentiary or the Cabinet Director. The Audit Chamber could not confirm that either had formal authority under the applicable mandate framework to enter into financial obligations on Sint Maarten’s behalf for Cabinet operations. An appropriation by Parliament makes money available; the auditors stress that it does not, by itself, grant authority to enter into legal acts for the country.
The Cabinet acknowledged that the mandate framework would benefit from clarification so that formal authority matches the responsibilities exercised in practice. The report does not conclude that every operational commitment was unlawful. It says it could not confirm the formal basis for such commitments.
Payment approvals existed; the full trail did not
Auditors examined transactions from 2021 through 2025, focusing on personnel costs and purchases of goods and services. Every sampled invoice carried a completed payment approval stamp. None had a purchase order attached.
The documentation accompanying the sampled invoices also failed to provide a complete trail showing steps such as order approval, confirmation that goods or services were received, quality checks, budget checks, and invoice verification. The Cabinet said it used other forms of prior approval, including electronic advice and petty-cash vouchers, for some transactions. Those approvals were not consistently linked to the invoices the auditors examined.
That distinction is important: the Audit Chamber found evidence that payments were approved, but said it could not verify from the linked records whether all required control steps had taken place.
It was also found that too many financial duties could rest with too few people. The Director could enter into financial obligations, approve payments, and manage petty cash. Another employee periodically counted petty cash as a compensating check. The Director said an extended staff absence had contributed to the concentration of some financial-administration duties.
The office’s manual provides financial procedures, but does not fully describe controls for purchase orders, confirmation of deliveries, electronic banking and the documentation of checks. Although it states that the Minister Plenipotentiary has a bank card for official expenses, it does not set out how card transactions should be authorized, documented, reviewed and reconciled.
Benefits still rely on a 2012 decision
The Audit Chamber also examined benefits provided under a 2012 Council of Ministers decision originally made for the deployment of the then-Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary. The arrangements included travel between the Netherlands and Sint Maarten up to twice a year, rental reimbursement up to €1,500, utilities, telephone and internet, use of an official vehicle including a personal driver, and first-class health insurance coverage for the family.
Auditors found no maximum amounts for telephone and internet or for gas, water and electricity under those arrangements. They found no updated government decision replacing the 2012 framework. A newer draft policy addressing housing, travel, allowances and vehicles had been submitted to the government but had not been formally adopted at the time of the audit.
Vehicle costs provide another measure of the spending involved. In 2024, the Cabinet maintained three vehicles at a total vehicle-related cost of €91,195, approximately XCG 180,000. One vehicle has since been sold, and another was scheduled for sale in 2026. The auditors said the reduction showed that vehicle needs had been reassessed and that there had been room to cut costs.
They also found no evidence that the Cabinet’s fixed-asset accounting records were periodically reconciled against a current physical inventory to confirm where assets were, whether they still existed, and what condition they were in.
Duties grew without a comprehensive mandate
The Minister Plenipotentiary’s constitutional role is to represent Sint Maarten in Kingdom affairs, including participation in the Kingdom Council of Ministers. In practice, the Hague office also undertakes student support, consular-related administration, economic and investment promotion, European affairs, cultural promotion and other activities.
Some tasks have a documented basis. The report cites a 2021 agreement with USZV concerning life certificates and mutation forms. But auditors found no overarching government instrument defining the full range of the Cabinet’s additional work, who authorized it, and how expenditure on it should be accounted for.
The report also found no formally adopted framework explaining which matters the Minister of General Affairs may approve or instruct, which belong to the Council of Ministers, and which fall to the Minister Plenipotentiary. The auditors say placing the Cabinet’s budget under General Affairs does not, by itself, establish a hierarchical relationship.
Government must decide what this office is
The Audit Chamber places responsibility for establishing the missing public accountability framework on the government. It sets out three possible paths: formally regulate the existing relationship with the foundation; bring the supporting office directly within government; or establish a legal framework for the Cabinet. It does not prescribe which path to choose.
Whichever option is selected, auditors say the government must settle the ownership and reporting of public funds, authority to spend, access for oversight, treatment of assets, and the respective responsibilities of the Minister Plenipotentiary, Cabinet, foundation and General Affairs.
The report covers 2021–2025. It should therefore not be read as an assessment of Perry Geerlings’ tenure as Minister of Finance, which ended before that period, or as a finding against him in his newly announced Cft appointment.
The central question for the current government is now straightforward: after more than a decade of using this structure, when will it give Parliament enforceable clarity over the public money sent to Sint Maarten’s office in The Hague?
Source: General Audit Chamber, Audit into the Governance and Financial Management of the Minister Plenipotentiary, September 2026, particularly pp. 1–3, 7–11 and 14–21.