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Ingezonden | With great power comes great responsibility

HomeNieuwsIngezonden | With great power comes great responsibility
Ingezonden brief

Uw ingezonden brief in de Knipselkrant Curacao? Stuur uw brief voor 21:00 uur naar emailadres INGEZONDEN. Wij publiceren uw brief zonder deze in te korten. De redactie van de Knipselkrant Curacao is niet verantwoordelijk voor de inhoud. Ingezonden stukken die opruiende of dreigende taal bevatten worden door ons niet gepubliceerd.

Vandaag laten we Executive Marine Management SXM aan het woord.

Dear Editor,

We would like to use your newspaper to address the good people of Sint Maarten.

As I am sure most of you are aware our salvage crew from the Bahamas equipped with a 150 ft barge and a 150 ton crane travelled 1400 miles to come and assist with devastation to your island nation. We traveled from the Bahamas after being asked for assistance by Jeff Boyd of Marine Management and Consulting NV and the Yacht Club at Port de Plaisance. Jeff indicated that after having first spoken to the Prime Minister via Text that it was his understanding that all we would need is our passports and the registrations for the barge and tug as they were in were desperate need for assistance.

Executive Marine Management Ltd, are first responders for most maritime disasters in the Bahamas and have a very experienced team which we sent down to assist and which could have made a tremendous difference in helping get St Maarten back on to its feet and your lagoon cleaned of wrecks.

The day after we arrived we were able to remove one sunken vessel and demonstrated our skill and the ability of the equipment that we brought to St Maarten. The government chose to stop all salvage operations and the reasoning was that the paper work was not right. Under normal circumstance, I would agree that this would and should be the case but these are far from normal circumstances. It defies all logic and common sense that a government of the people, for the people and by people would not make a reasonable decision to put a moratorium on all international documentation in the interest of taking care of your good country. The very lawmakers that insist on following the law to the letter in this very instance are responsible for a great injustice. An injustice to the environment and to the very people of St. Maarten.

I think that it was obvious that the barge and crane from the Bahamas was more than capable of salvaging vessels and helping with the cleanup of the bay. This being the case, the maritime authority thought it more important to insist that all the paper work had to be right or they will not allow work to get started.

We even agreed to sell all of the equipment to Mr. Boyd, thus allowing him to register the equipment with a St Maarten flag thus putting our equipment on par with the local equipment in St Maarten and the government officials wouldn’t even consider it. This is like throwing a life jacket to a drowning person on a sinking ship but the captain on the ship tells the drowning person not to use the life jacket as it is not Coast Guard Approved.

With great power comes great responsibility and the ability to use common sense and make judgement calls that are for the betterment of the people you serve. Ask yourself? Are your people better off? Is your island better off now that you have forced the Bahamian Barge and Crane to leave.

I can’t answer this for you, but I would venture to bet that the overwhelming majority of people on your island are asking what exactly are you trying to accomplish because for the last 30 days your red tape and bureaucracy has accomplished less than nothing. This is your legacy, this is your time to shine or not shine and lead or not lead and the decisions you make will define you as a government and as a nation.

My question to the people in charge that have stopped the salvage and removal of wrecks in Simpson Bay. Did you have to enforce these international policies and regulation knowing that your actions in no way would help your island?

The more important question is did your actions help or hurt your island. This is the only question that you should have been asking yourself when this salvage team from the Bahamas arrived. You could have very easily made a notation that the paper work for this salve team was not in order but under the disaster plan these regulation would be waived and after a local inspection to make sure the Barge and Crane were suitable for the tasks they would be allowed to work.

I still do not know what your motivation for preventing our team from the Bahamas to help you help your island. We will forever be perplexed and bewildered as to the decisions to prevent us from working to help you and you island.

We wish St Maarten good luck and farewell!!

Executive Marine Management,
Sint Maarten

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