Tax reform, waterfront development, United Congress. Three ambitious projects, the three hobbyhorses of Daniel Gibbs. He has been promoting them for several years but still hasn't managed to make them happen.
• Marigot seafront
When we talk about the development of the waterfront in Marigot, we automatically think of Daniel Gibbs. At the end of the 2000s, he had been associated with a vast project carried out by a Canadian group, which never went further than a presentation on paper. However, Daniel Gibbs does not abandon the idea.
While the political team in place between 2012-2017 failed to find an investor to develop the Sea Front (a call for applications had been launched but proved unsuccessful), the leader of the Union for Democracy returned in 2017 with a revised project, that of Grand Marigot. Although elected, he could not start the construction site; Irma imposing other priorities. The rehabilitation of the Sea Front will become one again in 2020.
December 2020, the president of the COM invites the local media to a presentation of the project and announces the launch of the urban development competition based on specifications drawn up by the president and elected officials. The name of the candidate whose architectural proposal will be selected must be announced in June 2021.
June 2021, the COM indicates three candidates have been pre-selected (the APS agency, Richez Associés and Oualachou et Choi), that the winner will be announced on July 22 and that work will begin in early 2022.
January 2022, Daniel Gibbs confirms to the media that a candidate has indeed been selected but that there has been a delay in the administrative notification procedure. The construction site is all the more remote. The date for the laying of the first stone is not yet scheduled.
• Tax reform
We need to reform our tax system. This sentence, Daniel Gibbs pronounced it dozens of times. He included this objective in his electoral program of 2012, then of 2017. Elected, he can try to achieve it. In December 2017, the COM launched a public market to recruit a firm. On February 28, 2018, Fidal was chosen by the three members of the executive council present that day.
The mission of this company based in Loire Atlantique takes place in two phases: the first consists of carrying out a diagnosis of the current tax system (strengths and weaknesses) and a competitive analysis of the territory in relation to its regional environment; the second phase in the overhaul of the tax system on the basis of the diagnosis, political objectives and future investment projects, the rewriting of the general tax code and the organization of a local control center within the services the public finance department (DGFIP). The cost of the service is 500 euros excluding tax and travel expenses.
However, the proposals are slow to be communicated. Daniel Gibbs is regularly questioned by members of the opposition on their establishment. The territorial councilors who left the majority a few weeks ago said they were not aware of the reform project.
Yet at the start of 2021, Daniel Gibbs assured “the work was finished, that the reform had been ready since 2019” but that he could not implement it because the public finance department had not validated it. “According to organic law, tax collection is carried out by the state, so we must ensure that our proposals are adapted to state systems,” he explains. In the meantime, the proposals are kept secret.
• United Congress
Another major political project of Daniel Gibbs, the installation of a "Congress of Saint-Martin" or "United Congress French and Dutch Saint-Martin". This body would bring together the authorities of the French and Dutch parts of the island, who could deliberate on decisions with a common stake. Daniel Gibbs had included it in the parliamentary report on Saint-Martin which he had co-signed in 2014 when he was a deputy, and in his electoral program in 2017.
At each ceremony celebrating cooperation, the subject comes back to the table. In 2021, Daniel Gibbs said he believed in it (still) “firmly”. But fails to make it happen. Lack of will from the Dutch side. “There is love but I am waiting for the proofs…”, he confided at the beginning of the year during a press conference. (soualigapost.com)
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