St. Maarten Private Eye

Like an immature and silly man that he is, Roy Marlin announced last Friday that he would not be held responsible if the island experiences water shortages due to his new water plant proposal being held up. It's a classic and obvious attempt to defect and avoid blame by a man with something to hide. This 'deal' is bad for St. Maarten and its people, in fact it's a rip-off in our opinion.

We here at SXM PE have been doing a little investigating and what we have discovered will shock you, or should, this is SXM after all. Despite what he says, Roy is responsible, he is the Commissioner over GEBE and Public Works and his DP party have been in government for 48 of the last 50 years. He is like King Midas with a difference, everything he touches turns into a disaster for SXM.

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A few notes on Lying.
Psychologists say there are a number of reasons that people lie, the most common is fear, often as a way of taking shelter from a perceived punishment. If they are always in fear of being punished, it may become a habit, which is a second reason for lying. In this case, it may become compulsive lying, which is lying by reflex. A third case is learning to lie through modeling. When people see others lie, especially when they get away with it, they may become more prone to lying. People lie because they feel if they tell the truth they won't get what they want.

Pathological lying is associated with a select few psychiatric diagnoses, which normally have their onset during adolescence. Namely, these are Conduct Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. In conduct disorder, it is common to see lying, conning people and other forms of deceit. In Antisocial Personality Disorder, there is a pervasive pattern of disregard of the rights of others, and with this, the person with this disorder will often lie to get what they wish – usually money, sex or power.

New Water Plant. - Location
Roy's latest lie came last week when he announced that the new water 'deal' that he wants to make with Air-Fin involves a new water plant in the lowlands area, a recommendation he claims is made in the IWACO report of 1997. Unfortunately for him, we managed to get hold of a copy of the report and it turns out he is either lying, or he hasn't read it, most likely lying. The IWACO report, from 1997, does recommend a new water plant, but in Point Blanche, not Lowlands.

St. Maarten's water distribution is divided into two sections, SXM West and SXM East, with the dividing line being the Cay Hill storage tanks. The IWACO report recommends that a new plant be constructed at Point Blanche which will service SXM East and cruise ships. Although decentralised, both sections would be able to support the other and cover for shortages.

1997 IWAKO Report

The report offers two options for the Mullet Bay/Lowlands region where Roy claims a new plant should be built. The first is to upgrade and install a new pumping station by the Mullet Bay storage tank (rented by GEBE), the second is to run a new pipe bypassing the tank. There is no need for a new plant in that area as it is easily supplied by Cay Bay with no hills to pump over. If Lowlands needs anything more than piping and pumps then it would be a new storage tank, the one at Mullet Bay is getting on in years and it is rented (unknown amount by GEBE) from MB. Water for SXM Esst is currently provided via the tanks on Cay Hill and one or two others, in Guana bay and Point Blanche.

Following are the relevent pages and recommendations from the IWACO report in regards to assumptions and development plans for SXM West and East. It shows clearly that the report was created with the assumption that a new plant should/would be built in Point Blanche.

SXM East.

Operational in 2005? Is this not 2007 already? Doin' a heckova job Roy! Whatcha been doing these past 8 years?

As you can see by the population growth figures below, the highest growth was predicted (in 1997) for SXM East, primilarily Dutch Quarter, Middle Region and Sucker Garden. These figures are considered quite accurate, most growth of population has been in SXM East.

The IWACO report recommends a new water plant, in Point Blanche. One article in the Today newspaper did mention that the report suggests 2 new plants, we could find NO mention of a third plant at all.

The IWAKO report makes two levels of recommendations, one for high growth and one for moderate growth.

Below are the production and distribution figures for 2005, 2006 and for the first 4 months of this year. Aqua Design have been providing extra supplies for over 2 years now, at twice the price of Enersrve. During this time, the Enerserve plant could have been upgraded and expanded. You will notice that GEBE started purchasing water from the French Side in Dec 2006.

As you can see from the figures above, the current daily demand is between 12,000 and 13,000m3, a target that an upgraded and enhanced Enerserve plant could meet.

Now, about that French side water........

Note: Figures below have been verified as much as we are able to do so, they come from good sources and if not exactly accurate, are very close to being so.

- Water from Enerserve is purchased at $1.63 per cubic meter till 9,375m3, anything over is charged at $1.19.
- Water from Aqua Design is purchased at $2.68 per cubic meter.
- Water from the French side is purchased at 5 EUROS per cubic meter ($6.50)

Yes, you read that correct, 5 EUROS. per M3.

GEBE purchased 25,437m3, 13,843m3 and 18,243m3 in Dec, Jan and Feb respectively from the French Side, for a total of 57,523m3. When multiplied with 5 you get a total of 287,615. Exhibit A below.

291,539.68 EUROS is approximately $370,000. (1.30) GEBE sells to YOU, the consumer, at 2.50nafs ($1.39) each for the first 5m3 and 5.50 nafs ($3.05) after. If Enerserve had been upgraded and was supplying the water the French side has supplied, it would have cost GEBE $68,450

It's safe to say that when you also include lost profits, buying water from the French Side has caused loses to GEBE in excess of $300,000 through Dec, Jan and Feb . This does not include March and although GEBE stopped in April because of the high cost, we understand it has started again recently due to nescessity.

Meanwhile, we understand the because of contracts arranged by Theo, the island is also supplying several cruiseships with water, it is not known at what price. While some may rightly claim that Theo is just doing his job by taking care of the cruise ships needs in order to keep them visiting, on the other hand, he is a member of the DP government, a government which has failed to adequately plan for the island's future and needs.

The Enerserve Plant and Air-Fin Deal
There is no argument that there is a desperate shortage of water on the island, but this is ALL due to Roy not doing his job and it rests firmly upon his and his government's shoulders. (See above - New Water plant operations in 2005). You are often left to wonder what exactly it is he does all day. Need I mention Intaquin and the lack of waste treatment or the overflowing garbage dump as two other examples of him NOT doing his job?

The Deal with Fin-Air is a scam, plain and simple. It robs St. Maarten and GEBE not only of owning the Enerserve plant for another 10 years, but it will also cost us all a great deal of money. This is the plan:

Govt will enter into a new contract with Fin Air for them to build a new plant with a production of only 3000m3, little more than is currently being supplied by Aquadesign and the FS, perhaps an excess of about 1000m3 over daily demand. Government will then, with the financial assistance of Fin-Air, buy out the remainder of the contract with Enerserve, valued at about $4.5 million and then turn the plant over to Fin-Air for another 10 years.

Taking the figures quoted in the The Daily Herald - 3rd May 2007 - Government shall pay Air-Fin US $1.417 per cubic meter for water supplied up to the amount of 4,489,500m3 per year including electricity costs which is calculated at a fixed price of US $0.13 per Kilowatt Hour. Any increase in electricity cost shall be added to Air-Fin’s service fee on a pass through basis. For all water supplied in excess of the 4,489,500m3 per year up to the plant’s maximum capacity, Government shall pay US $0.92.

Working from the premise that we need at least 13,000m3 daily, for now.

With Enerserve we would buy 9,375m3 at $1.62 and the remaining 3,625m3 at $1.19

9,375 x 1.62 = 15,167.50
3,625 x 1.19 = 4,313.75
Total $19,481.25

With the new Air-Fin plant we would buy 12,300 (4,489,500m3 / 265) at $1.417 and 700 at $0.92

12,300 x 1.417 = 17,429.10
700 x 0.92 = 644.00
Total = $18,073.10

Basically a savings of $1,500 a day and in exchange St. Maarten gives up the ownership of a multi million dollar plant which it will obtain in less than 3 years. Continuing with the calculator, if we assume it is exactly 3 years, 365 days times 3, we have 1095 days, times this by $1,500 and you get a total of $1,642,500.

This is the amount St. Maarten will save by entering into a new deal with Air-Fin, but in exchange for those savings it will give up it's dreams of owning a multimillion dollar plant and producing it's own water, at least for the next 10 years. Not only that, those savings are negated by the fact that GEBE will still be purchasing the water from a third party instead of producing it themselves.

The 35 page agreement with Air-Fin appears to be full of holes and gives them a great deal, with few penalties for noncompliance conditions of Fin-Air that have any real significance. We will be going through it in the coming days and selecting a few morsels to post here, it's too big to do it all right now. And today it looks like Roy's 'deal' is falling apart at the seams.

Respect Enerserve contract, transfer water plant to GEBE - 9th May 2007

WIth Enerserve's owner, Veolia (Vivendi) offering to increase capacity at their plant FREE of charge, the urgent need is removed. The island does still need a new water plant, but it needs it in SXM East, as the IWACO report recommended.

Before we round up this long blog report, we would just like to mention a little more about Roy's incompetance when it comes to the island's water supply and needs.

Storage and and Reserve

Current reserves of water on SXM hover around the 0.9 to 1.5 day mark, between 11,000 and 16,000m3. The IWACO report recommends a MINIMUM of 3 days supply as reserve and the page below lists the existing tanks (1997) and proposed new tanks. Only one has been built, a 1,500m3 tank in Guana Bay, another 16,000m3 of reservior space is still waiting to be built, including a 3rd much needed tank at Cay hill, which was supposed to be ready for use by 2005.

As Mr. Brooks, GEBE's Managing Director informs us in todays news report, there is no clear line of responsibility when it comes to the distribution network. Building of tanks and laying of pipes is the responsibility of govt, GEBE just use and manage them. Because Roy and Govt and not been doing it's job and investing in this infrastructure, GEBE has been doing a great deal of work and making improvements for which they should by rights be compensated by Govt funds. According to Mr Brooks, this situation has resulted in an outstanding debt to GEBE of over 17 million nafs.

GEBE should be given ownership of all, reservoirs, pipelines and cables and the funds or freedom to invest as it needs to, only in this way can proffessionals plan for the future.

Roy's 'deal' basically denies GEBE and the island from owning it's own water plant, many things are seriously wrong with it. Criminally wrong maybe, who knows? Surely an investigation is needed here. If only to expose what a bad deal Roy is making, or wants to make, and to protect the best interest of the island. This is not a time to be playing games with the basic needs for life.

One thing is very clear in all this and it explains the situation on the island in regards to the lack of transparency and good governance. Information helps to open peoples eyes to two things, good management and bad management.

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