Holland to benefit from NuStar's expansion

As stated on several occasions, the St. Eustatius government is in favor of NuStar expansions plans. Economical development of the island is the main argument. Commissioner Van Putten in The Daily Herald of September 9, 2011: "The island must see a significant contribution in order for the Executive Council to give its fiat to any expansion plan".  Van Putten was on a working visit in the Netherlands to discuss the NuStar proposal with the Dutch Ministries.

The Dutch Minister of Kingdom Affairs made it very clear that St. Eustatius government is the one to decide on the expansion. Given that fact, it is very interesting to follow NuStar's lobby in The Hague. NuStar seems to pay frequent visits to members of parliament in The Hague, and former Minister of foreign affairs, Ben Bot himself is one of the lobbyist trying to win them over.

So what's in it for the Dutch?

NuStar and its predecessors always paid very low taxes on the island. Since 10 October 2010, the island of St. Eustatius no longer is part of the Netherlands Antilles, but became a public entity of the Netherlands. One of the first things the Dutch changed in St. Eustatius was the tax system. The main increase in tax revenue of NuStar will go directly to The Hague, as a local council member states in Statia News. 

St. Eustatius got extra funding from Holland for education and health care. In other important areas, local government is very much on its own. The government faces huge problems according to the same council member:

• "Government cannot pay decent salaries, which makes it very hard to attract quality personnel. Also many of our locals don’t want to come back home because of this.
•  Government buildings are almost beyond repair and not suitable to work in. There is no money on the budget for maintenance.
• All our roads and other infrastructure are in a deplorable state and need urgent attention.
• There is not one cent for investment. Instead there is a multi-million dollar investment deficit with their roads, electricity supply system."

With an annual "free resource" of 7,4 million dollar coming from Holland, it is impossible for St. Eustatius government to get the island's infrastructure on an acceptable level.

So this is actually a very smart move of Dutch government. They collect the money and leave local government to deal with angry citizens, ravaged eco-systems and destroyed archeological sites.