St. Maarten Private Eye

Hi Everyone.
That was some quite interesting reading for me. Overall you are basically all right about nearly everything.

Culturally the French is never satisfied even when you lick their butts. That’s beside the point. The French Republic imposes the same kind of management as they do in France. Symptomatically just like in France, the system doesn’t work.

For the Record I’m from French SXM

1) MANAGEMENT PROBLEM:
You are right to point out that the French buys their food etc… on the Dutch Side and yet can’t make it appear on their Menus. I’m sticking to Restaurant because it’s one of the main apparent sufferers. But I could mention, French supermarkets, Stores etc… You don’t need a PHD to see it’s a total vicious circle. The French government asks a certain amount of taxes, as indicated above. But it’s normally always the result of a percentage of your turnover. The problem is they send them all at once with approximately the same deadline to pay. So it bowls down to say that Entrepreneurs have to learn how to manage their shit properly. Then again when they do, they are confronted to extra payments to “expert comptable” etc… In the fear of fines and so forth the restaurants and others complain instead of finding a method that works for their activity and turnover regularities. If those restaurants were to convert their USD at the right rate and then declare the turnover to the government I doubt they would pay a price that is not proportional. So basically it’s called for BETTER MANAGEMENT.

2) VAT/TVA:
For SXM we have no VAT (Taxe sur la Valeur Ajoutée), that’s a fact. But yet, when the products get down here they are so expensive comparing to France for instance. All the imported products especially from Europe have a 40 to 100 % increase comparing to the original price. You may think this is a joke but no, in Match for instance, a box of 6 ACTIMEL (Milk drink of less than 0.50 ml) cost 8.90 Euros but in France the same thing cost 2.70 EUROS The worst part of the story is that the TVA still doesn’t apply to the products that come here, because it’s a tax free zone unlike France. That principle is applied for nearly everything. When I was young I use to say the French Nationality is an expensive brand for the St Martin peeps. And I’m only 28! So GET THIS the peep who have been in the game for far too long are now getting the DRILL/ Come on now!!!!!!!!!!!

3) WORK ISSUE:
Those same restaurants that are complaining have their part of so much injustice going on here. Little story: Every day Air France, Corsair, Air Caraibes etc… bring down the typical visitor that never came here before but yet, coming to meet Harry/Peter or Paul in order to get the Waiter, Sommelier, hotel manager etc position. Yet we have on both sides of the island students from the catering field that come out and remain out off work. They treat us unfairly and we just sit and take it (Whoever said that slavery was over). Because I guess we all have a certain comfort zone. So restaurants if u reduce your prices realistically, according to the market I don’t think the French Government will over charge you, because your taxes will reflect your CA (Turnover). But admit that greed is also a big problem. No matter how they try to justify their PRICES the point is the DOLLAR is so imposing on the Island and those restaurateurs are too busy looking out for their own best interest.

4) COST OF LIVING:
The big hypocrisy on this island consists of saying it’s okay to have the Dutch people exploited by their system which impose salaries in NAF. Having your own money is noble but it’s unfair to know that an employee will get 1200 NAF instead of 1200 $ (worth of the actual job they are doing). Keeping the NAF entails that USD will always rule the Island. Upgrading to Euros like in Holland will mean the peep will identify the actual salary injustice. NOW THAT’S SCARY! Black peep gone MAD on SM will be the CNN TITTLE.

5) THE “35H LE MODELE FRANCAIS” :
35H where do I begin? Well first we have to give it to the FRENCH, the 35h is quite a revolution. Basically the French basic working hours is 35H per week. It means that people work 7h per day. The businesses in SXM have to close in order to avoid recruitment and of course the government knows it very well. In the respect of always making more money without spending or giving back to the community, the poor people go to work twice a day 9:00AM-12:00PM and 3:00PM-7:00 PM. The 35H were initially created by the JOSPIN Government to create jobs and help people get more time to spend with their families. AND what are we experiencing? The French is attached to their 35h as long as they can work CONTINUOUSLY. But the French employers in SXM only make it work for their own benefits. As a result, we have less job opportunities, a lot of unemployment etc… AGAIN the ones suffering is definitely not the Grand Case restaurant owners. LOL

I will end this by saying. We reap what we sow. So my dear Frenchies… peace out and remember. “On ne peut pas avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre” (you can’t have your cake and eat it at the same time).

COMPLAINING IS GREAT PROPOSITIONS ARE EVEN BETTER.
1) MANAGEMENT PROBLEM: Get the right training or make it work
2) TVA: if importing foods and goods is too expensive, then let’s get into making our own (pick the things we can make ourselves)
3) WORK ISSUE: Use labor in SXM unless it for an intellectual purpose that our people can’t handle
4) COST OF LIVING: Increase Salaries to adapt to the sxm lifestyle because overall, giving us the worth of our labor won’t really reduce the business turnovers
5) 35H: USE IT FOR ITS INITIAL PURPOSE … Help create jobs, reduce unemployment, making work a positive experience bla bla bla

Highly Opinionated Cathy