ORANJESTAD- The Island Council of St. Eustatius this morning was quite critical about Board Appointments which have taken place over the past months at various government-owned companies on the island.

Councilman Van Putten, as is often the case, was most vocal on the issue during the public Island Council Meeting. He protested the fact that there was, according to him, a lack of transparency in the recruitment and selection phase. He also protested the fact that many foreigners, as he described them, were appointed to the boards, while there were also many local candidates available who could have been appointed instead.

“We have intellectuals from foreign countries on our boards. These are important institutions. We also have many local professionals on this island, who have studied abroad and have come back to the island. What are the requirements for persons being put on the board?”, asked Van Putten. Van Putten also wanted to know if the Dutch Government was demanding Dutch appointees to be placed on the various boards.

Van Putten also protested the fact that the Island Council was often the last to hear about new members appointed to the boards. “If we take STUCO for example, four out of the five Board Members are unknown to us as island Council”.

Not transparent

Councilman Koos Sneek was also critical of the appointments. While he had no question marks about the qualification of those appointed, he did criticize the lack of information about appointments made.

“It cannot be that we as representatives of the people have to read in the paper with a nice photo that new board was appointed to a Government Owned company”.

The BES-Reporter sent questions to the Government Information Service on January 12^th 2022 enquiring about procedures applied to the selection of Board Members, but never received any reaction.