MARIGOT--President Alain Richardson said at a press conference Friday on his return from Paris that he was "troubled" that little progress had been made by services responsible for finding a solution to the Collectivité's financial predicament, specifically the authorisation of a cash injection to allow some of the main debts and expenses to be paid.
The financial report was completed following the audit carried out by Agence Financière Developpement (AFD), but it has not yet been validated by the Minister of Overseas Territories, Richardson explained.
"Although we understood there are some recommendations in the report that should be in our favour I cannot say that the meetings have yielded the positive outcome that we were expecting," he stated. "It's a file that I'm going to have to keep pushing in front of them so that the report be validated and the recommendations in the report be speedily applied."
It was understood in the report that the compensation for St. Martin decided by the Evaluation Commission for the transfer of competences had been determined unfairly.
The President was in Paris from June 28-30 accompanied by Second Vice-President Guillaume Arnell and Director of General Services Pascal Averne. The purpose in Paris was to have meetings with officials in the Ministry of Overseas Territories and the Justice Ministry, and with special advisors to the Prime Minister and President of the Republic.
The delegation met with the Justice Minister to discuss failings of the court system in St. Martin such as lack of operating funds and staffing, and to discuss transition of the tribunal to a Court of First Instance.
"We were given a very attentive ear at the Justice Ministry and I feel solutions will be forthcoming," he said.
On other points there was optimistic news for Anguilla residents on the visa issue. Richardson said all indications pointed to Anguillians not having to apply for visas to enter St. Martin.
The stipulation from the French government was that holders of British passports on which the nationality mentioned on the page of personal data is not "British Citizen" must have visas to enter St. Martin. Anguillians in possession of the Anguilla passport and not the EU passport would have to apply for visas.
The possibility for St. Martin to have its own Programme Operationel (PO) 2012-2014 with accompanying European funds is also positive and on track, he said.
Gasoline tax income and implementation of a specific code to allow road tax dodgers to be fined legally also were addressed.
On the subject of the Cité Scolaire project in La Savane designed to solve the overcrowding problem in the Lycée and Collège Mont des Accords, Guillaume Arnell noted the financing arrangement for this project set up by Semsamar through a Bail Emphytéotique Administratif (BEA) needed to be revised.
"It's no longer acceptable, because on a total of 19 million euros you have 14 million coming from public funding," Arnell explained. "With that amount of public funding you can no longer accept to pay 450,000 euros per year in rent for 25 years. It seems as if you are paying twice or three times more than the cost of the building. There has to be a better calculation than that. Semsamar seems to be dealing with us as foreigners when they should be dealing with us as partners and shareholders."
Asked to rate the success of the trip, Richardson said the visa issue outcome, the talks with the Justice Ministry and the Programme Operationel for St. Martin were among the more favourable and positive aspects of the visit.
"But I do regret the fact we were not able to have a face-to-face with the Minister of Overseas Territories Victorin Lurel because of the emergency he had to attend to. We don't know yet what each ministry has in terms of a budget to know how much each territory can be helped. I'm not happy either that the AFD report does not specify how much the compensation has to be. Our problem is cash flow, and if the Collectivité had to pay all of its debts today that would be 33 million euros."
He noted that it had been five months since the report was requested.
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