Second part of the press conference that President Daniel Gibbs gave, before the signing of the addendum to the post-Irma protocol. The year 2019 has passed, and President Gibbs assures that there was “zero payment in the 1st quarter of 2019, zero payment in the 2nd quarter of 2019, zero payment in the 3rd quarter of 2019…
“At the most, we were told that this exceptional operating grant would, for this year 2019, be“ transformed ”into an investment grant. And that an amendment to the protocol would set these new rules of the game… ”, assures Daniel Gibbs.
But on November 29, a letter from the prefecture of the Northern Islands "announces to me that an exceptional endowment would be well paid in 2019, no longer in operation, but in investment" and that "its amount was fixed at 16,1 million euros, barely a third of the 50 million euros endowment included in the finance law ”. And to receive this largely reduced allocation, "we must have signed the endorsement which is proposed to us, and which adds new obligations, new constraints, new ratios to be respected, and above all, we must have signed it before Saturday December 14! "
Also, the President asks, "How can we seriously work in these conditions? How can we work with trust and respect, when the rules of the game are constantly changing…? There is an adage, at once popular, political and administrative which says “who pays… control! " I played the game, I accepted the checks and for 18 months it has been getting worse and worse ”.
The pressing urgency which makes it possible to have recourse to over-the-counter procedures, in terms of public procurement, was to extend until end of December 2017, "4 months after Irma". However, on August 19, 2019, the prefecture of Guadeloupe announced that this period would have lasted only one month, “ending on a discretionary basis, on October 9, 2017 (…) And now, the amendment to the protocols that we are notified fifteen days before the end of the budget year! What do you think of all this? "
Next Saturday, December 14, “we will have to discuss, not only this endorsement, but also, as part of our budgetary orientation debate, the programming of our multi-year investment plan (PPI) for the years 2019 to 2023 ".
This endorsement constitutes a central element "of our development project for Saint-Martin, since it must define part of the financial means which will allow us to achieve it". The amendment must be followed by the signature of the State-Community convergence contract of Saint-Martin, currently being negotiated, which will complete this system. A convergence contract that President Daniel Gibbs did not want to sign "without knowing what the percentage of the State's contribution would be, and without having seriously evaluated the effort that our Collectivity should make in this contract"._RM
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