TelEm Group CEO Kendall Dupersoy appointed to CANTO board

Committee SXM. Minister Richardson has explored options to send undocumented inmates back to their country of origin to serve the remainder of their sentences there, combined with a ban on returning to St. Maarten for a number of years. Those options run into trouble with the lack of treaties with other countries. If there is no treaty, St. Maarten depends on the willingness of other countries to cooperate. “A prison sentence must work as a deterrent for crime in St. Maarten and victims of crimes must know that justice is being served,” Richardson said. The minister has consulted with kingdom partners on more than one occasion about transferring inmates to other parts of the kingdom. “Unfortunately, this is St. Maarten’s problem to solve,” she remarked.

Photo Caption: UNOPS delegation visiting St. Maarten.

The partnership with UNOPS (United Nations Office of Project Services) offers a solution in the long term. UNOPS is involved in the project for the construction of a new prison. To this end, the Pointe Blanche prison will be demolished and inmates will have to be incarcerated at a transitional facility. Minister Richardson wants that facility to have more capac- ity than the current prison. Phase one of the new prison project will take around twenty months. At the end of that phase, a transitional facility will have been procured, according to UNOPS. StMaartenNews.com has approached the public prosecutor’s office with questions about current sentences but it did not receive satisfactory answers. The Prosecutor’s Office only replied that it is “by the nature of its function, constantly dealing with cases in general and awaiting verdicts, in the Court in First Instance or at the appeals court.”

Asked how many politicians are still waiting for the execution of their verdicts, the reply was that the Prosecutor’s Office “does not catalogue its cases based on the profession or the standing of a person.” For this reason, the Prosecutor’s Office said it was unable to indicate how many convicted politicians are on the waiting list. Statements made by Minister Richardson during the Justice committee-meeting offer a different perspective, saying that out of the 87 inmates that call the Pointe Blanche prison their home at the moment, 24 are undocumented, half are first-time offenders, 11 are between the ages of 18 and 25 and four inmates are close to serving 2/3 of their sentences.

Pond Island -- TelEm Group CEO, Mr. Kendall Dupersoy has been elected to the board of CANTO (Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organization). The appointment was made during the 39th annual general meeting of CANTO in Suriname earlier this month. According to Mr. Dupersoy, the nomination was prompted by board member Mrs. Helma Etnel, who will be standing down from the board in keeping with her retirement from the TelEm Group of Companies to make way for a new CFO next month.

CANTO, a non-profit association that holds annual telecommunication conferences in island member countries, is made up of operators, organizations, companies, and individuals in the ITC sector. The association has a Caribbean focus on dealing with ITC issues for the region but with a global perspective.

Included in the services offered by CANTO are their annual conference and trade exhibition, annual general meeting, ITC training and workshops, and various ITC publications.

Mr. Dupersoy says he is honored to maintain a TelEm Group presence at the board level of CANTO and that the regional telecommunication organization will continue to play an important role in telecommunication development in the Caribbean region.

“Regional operators can benefit much by cooperating and partnering in various areas of telecommunications, particularly when it comes to maintaining products and services and revenues in a fast-changing telecommunication market,” said Mr. Dupersoy.

The CEO says TelEm’s Group rollout of a fiber optic infrastructure is quite advanced when compared with fiber networks in other Caribbean islands therefore the company can already offer much assistance in the way of advice to its regional neighbors based on lessons learned.

“We are continuing to look at different ways of working closer in the Caribbean telecommunication-wise”, said Mr. Dupersoy citing partnering with operators on the French side of the island in a new internet exchange initiative and closer to home, the company’s own IPTV system which has prioritized making regional broadcasts an important part of the company’s IPTV program lineup.

“Mrs. Etnel has over the years worked very closely with CANTO and I would very much like to maintain that relationship as a new board member to the benefit to TelEm Group, its employees, and St. Maarten generally”, said Mr. Dupersoy.

Letter to the editor re voting booth rear curtain removal.

Reading the front page article in the Daily Herald of February 22, 2023, regarding a squabble over the PFP proposal to remove the rear curtain from the voting booths, I took note:

NA’s George Pantophlet thinks the voters lack understanding and need more education. (Huh??). Faction Ludmila Duncan likes the PFP idea but wants the presence of other persons in the polling stations to be looked at. Good point. How about larger voting halls, with do-not-cross lines painted on the floor 20 feet from the entrance to each voting booth? While voters are in the booths, NO-ONE is to cross the line. Faction Grisha Heyliger-Marten fully supports the PFP proposal… Good for her! UD faction leader Sarah Wescot-Williams and her party also fully support the PFP proposal! Yessss!! But, as expected, almost violent drama-laced opposition to the simple proposal to remove the rear curtain comes from Faction Christophe Emmanuel and the Rolando Brison version of the UP faction... At all costs, the curtains must stay! I wonder why?

Michael J. Ferrier St. Maarten 02/22/2023