Business View Caribbean | February 2020

54 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN FEBRUARY 2020 big job for a new Golden Rock resort complex in Statia. It’s an area of 100 hectares and we are doing the infrastructure work for the project. We have our own concrete plant on that site to use for building roads. The client also drilled a well in the neighborhood of the sea and we are going to pump water from that well. It is salt water and that is going through an osmosis plant to make it fresh drinkwater. So the whole resort can be self-supporting from water. We had to take care that no soil from the area where we’re working goes into the sea because that is not good for the coral reefs. We built some walls to push up the water, so the speed of the water is going down. We have 25 to 30 laborers working for us there every day – building the concrete roads, the lines to the houses, the sewage lines and septic tanks –also the sewage water will be treated and used as irrigation. It is a major project.” Weather can be a challenge for the company. While the hurricanes steered clear of Saba and St. Eustatius during the 2019 season, there was +599 3194748 | +1721 5808562 | maynard_6@hotmail.com The best quality work from foundation to finish! HOMES • HURRICANE PROOFING • CARPENTRY • REPAIRS • ROAD PROJECTS a significant amount of rainfall and that can play havoc with infrastructure developments. Vanderbij admits, “We haven’t done a lot of work the last years on Statius, so we have to find again our way with the existing subcontractors. Saba and Statia became special municipalities of the Netherlands in 2010, and new legislation is in place. Two days of the week I’m onsite at Statia, two days at Saba, and one in St. Maarten, so I travel a lot with Winair.” Finding skilled laborers can also pose a problem. As Vanderbij attests, “You can’t fly in a lot of people from St. Maarten because they need a Dutch passport and after that they can work only for three months on Statia. So, we have to look for people on the island. Of course, that is also one of the goals of our company – to give the people something back. We give them work and they give the island a nice resort. That’s a win-win situation. In the area of training, I was in contact with the government and they put us in touch with some people who needed an