In the presence of the 1st Vice-President, Valérie Damaseau, the President of the Community, Daniel Gibbs took part in the question-and-answer game with the journalists, during the weekly news update, carried out last Monday, April 20 by Facebook Live.
1-Could you keep all schools closed even if the Ministry of Education and the Rectorate request the resumption of classes?
We really want a concerted decision on the reopening of the schools. The priority is to know the method and resources that the government will make available to communities to enable them to reopen schools in optimal sanitary conditions.
This is the essential point, because there is no question of putting our children, the educational community and all the families of this island in danger, because of hasty decisions.
We consider that before deciding to send our children back to school, all the safety and hygiene conditions must be met. And these conditions must also be consistent with the health situation in our territory and the means made available by the Government to protect our population.
This is why, I wanted to talk to the actors of education. The final decision, which concerns them first, must be able to be held.
Of course, we have a duty to consider returning to an activity in Saint-Martin… we must however integrate the fact that this return will be radically different from the life we had before.
2- PDo you believe that the border must remain filtered and controlled as it is today as long as the situation is not completely resolved on the Dutch side?
At present, and taking into account the health situation on the Dutch side, the competent actors in the matter consider that it is wiser to maintain, for the time being, this control system.
I remind you that we jointly established it following the measures taken by the Prime Minister of Sint Maarten.
We are not in favor of closing the borders between our two countries, we are committed to the Treaty of Concordia which has bound us for 374 years, but we are going through an unprecedented health crisis and the health of our fellow citizens is at stake.
It is a case of force majeure. We have to protect each other.
It is important, whatever the decision, that it be taken in concert
3-Do the relatively frequent passages of vehicles and residents of Sint-Maarten to the Bellevue and Belle Plaine border not worry you about the spread of the Covid-19 in the French part?
This is a subject that we raised with Madam the Prefect and Prime Minister Sylvéria Jacobs, because indeed, we have seen a high back-and-forth in recent days.
We must ensure that those who need to cross the border for work can do so, but the police must also be intransigent to avoid abuse.
We have seen an increase in vehicles on the road since last Tuesday. I know that there are systematic checks, but I remind you that our fellow citizens must stay at home and travel only if absolutely necessary, and this, as long as the State maintains the containment measures on the island .
The better we respect these rules, the faster we can get out.
4-The president announced a call for demonstration to manufacture masks. The prefect also said that she wanted to hire dressmaking volunteers to make masks. Is it the same initiative?
It is indeed the same starting point. We launched this call for contributions jointly with the State and Initiative St Martin Active.
However, the approach of the Collectivity primarily concerns the masked equipment of the population of sensitive neighborhoods. The Prefecture seems to focus more on equipping children and teaching in the context of resuming lessons.
In both cases, the raw material will be supplied to the craftsmen.
At the end of the call for applications which will be closed tomorrow, we will communicate on the jointly agreed conditions.
5-The Collectivity has announced an exceptional fund of 5M €, will you entrust this fund to organizations competent in the matter?
Indeed, we turned to the two associative players in business financing: ADIE and ISMA. The work is in progress, we will communicate on these partnerships as soon as they are recorded.
6-To what extent the Collectivity could "put pressure" on local banks so that they play the game and allow companies to access more easily loans guaranteed 90% by the State (Bpifrance)?
The Collectivity cannot put “pressure” on the banks. We spoke with their local representatives two weeks ago. We plan to take stock of the support for our companies because we are seeing some blockages despite their reassuring speech at the beginning of April.
7-You have announced that you wish to use a massive screening program at the time of deconfinement, while specifying that it will not be possible to test the entire population. What will be the selection criteria for these tests?
As I explained, the tests will be carried out by the medical profession according to a protocol predefined by the doctors, under the supervision of the ARS.
The community volunteered to take over the purchase of screening equipment. This involves first acquiring machines for tests on symptomatic people and 2400 serological test kits.
Acquisition times are long: 3 weeks in the best case. We must therefore be careful and use all our networks to quickly obtain this material.
It is important to note that the tests must be prescribed by the medical profession to be covered by social security. However, the arrangements have not been finalized and are not the responsibility of the Collectivity, which has concentrated its effort on providing very rare and precious equipment at the moment. The community retains the possibility of intervening financially on this aspect if this proves essential.
8-We see a large number of people without masks or with “homemade” masks. Is a distribution of masks to the entire population planned before May 11, especially for shopping?
It is not our responsibility to equip the population. On the other hand, at our level, we mobilize economic actors to find solutions. Some have started to impose health rules to access their signs.
We have ordered protective equipment for our staff and each company must be responsible and do the same for its employees, at least initially.
In addition, the masks having a very short lifespan and being polluting, we opted for the manufacture of AFNOR approved barrier masks which are washable at 60 ° minimum and reusable.
May 11 is the date set by the President of the Republic for a gradual reopening of schools. It is not the end of containment. You have to make a difference.
Anyway, we are in favor of wearing face protection (disposable or washable), as soon as you leave your home, especially when you go to closed places such as grocery stores and supermarkets.
9-The problem of internet access is amplified by the crisis, some neighborhoods have no access at all or access has deteriorated due to network saturation. Have you spoken to the operators on this subject?
We actually intervened with Internet operators to alert them to the need to have sufficient access during this crisis period. All assured me of their mobilization.
Landfill work continues at Morne Valois. The program has been slowed down by the crisis, in particular because companies have heavy health and safety constraints, but everything that is possible, we do.
10-Have you already started working on a schedule for reopening restaurants and shops?
It is still too early to decide on a schedule for the reopening of restaurants and shops, which does not mean that we are not already working on these aspects. Our teams are in regular contact with employers' organizations and socio-professional associations and therefore fully aware of their issues.
These are decisions that we will take in concertation. We will take stock very soon with the organizations concerned on this issue.
11-You specified that a circular was being created to allow the community to benefit from the emergency measures decreed by the government to deal with the Covid, have you had a response from the overseas ministry?
The Overseas Ministry reassured us about the right of the Collectivity of Saint-Martin to claim all of the national economic systems.
With regard to the dematerialization of our territorial councils, making it possible to apply certain measures, we have been authorized to operate on the same basis as all the other communities.
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