St. Maarten Private Eye

SXM News Network

EXCO MAY KEEP MOOJI On St. Maarten
--- Environment Needs Protection--- De Vreeze Wants Head of Economic Affairs

Philipsburg:- The newly sworn in executive council is looking into their budget to see if they can consolidate a salary for environmental prosecutor Paul Mooij who is suppose to finish his term on St. Maarten and return to Holland by September 1st 2007.

SMN News learnt from reliably sources that the executive council does not want to loose the only prosecutor who has given his years of dedication in trying to preserve St. Maarten’s environment, thus they are trying to hire the prosecutor so that he can stay on St. Maarten to continue prosecuting environmental cases.

Prosecutor Paul Mooij who chose to spend a third term on St. Maarten just for the sake of the island environment suffered salary cuts to stay on the island. Mooij is the only prosecutor who was able to secure a judge to listen to environmental cases that have been pending over the years.

Over the year’s St. Maarten has been plagued with sewage and other running water in public roads and dwelling yards which Mooij is determine to stamp out, by making sure culprits responsible for the pollution be prosecuted.

Many environmental groups when they heard that Mooji’s term was ending and that he would leave the island wrote several letters to the media appealing to the attorney general to secure a prosecutor with the same type of knowledge and dedication as Mooij.

Many commissioners also expressed their concern at the executive press briefing their displeasure of hearing that the island would loose one of its best all rounder prosecutors.

SMN News has learnt that newly sworn in commissioner of Public Works (ROB) Theodore Heyliger is seeking to secure a salary for Mooij, which will keep him on St. Maarten, however, Heyliger could not be reached for a comment up to press time.

Meanwhile, SMN News also learnt that Prosecutor Johan De Vreeze who finished his term at the end of May no longer wants to work as a prosecutor and he has applied for a job with the island government to be head of Economic Affairs.

De Vreeze also owns the former “Boardroom Bar” in Guana Bay, is presently under renovations. The bar is operational only on Sunday’s and is managed by Paul Dipp SMN News confirmed

The prosecutor who is in the Netherlands on vacation could not be reach for a comment.

Also of concern is the Prosecutor’s Office on St. Maarten is grossly short staffed and additional prosecutors will only arrive on the island sometime in September to help strengthen the skeleton staff.
Presently there are only three prosecutors on duty Taco Stein, Paul Mooji and Daikaran Sairain, who are charged with handling a number of criminal cases daily.

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