ACP-SXM Secures Immediate halt to household electricity disconnections

GREAT BAY--The Association for Consumer Protection St. Maarten (ACP-SXM) announced that it has reached what it described as a landmark agreement with NV GEBE to immediately halt scheduled household electricity disconnections that were set to commence on Monday, June 29, 2026.

The agreement was reached on June 26, 2026, between ACP-SXM and NV GEBE, St. Maarten’s public electricity and water utility. ACP-SXM said the outcome follows its sustained legal and advocacy campaign on behalf of consumers, including its formal petition of June 15, 2026, and the Community March for Rights, Accountability & Transparency held that same day.

According to ACP-SXM, the June 26 meeting resulted in several key commitments from NV GEBE.

NV GEBE agreed to immediately halt all scheduled household consumer disconnections pending the finalization of a formal Temporary Collections Policy. The company also committed to developing, as a matter of urgency, a Temporary Collections Policy in collaboration with ACP-SXM. That policy is expected to establish transparent, fair and clearly communicated procedures for consumers with outstanding bills.

NV GEBE also committed to preparing formal consumer-facing communication explaining the composition and build-up of the fuel clause, known as the brandstoftoeslag, and its impact on consumer bills. In addition, NV GEBE agreed to provide ACP-SXM with a copy of the current dunning, or demand, letter, the Collections Policy currently in use, and a written response to items 3 through 9 of ACP-SXM’s formal petition of June 15, 2026.

Governance Failures Disclosed During Meeting

ACP-SXM said the meeting also produced admissions that raise significant governance concerns within NV GEBE.

According to ACP-SXM, NV GEBE’s legal counsel confirmed on the record that the company has had no permanent C-suite management in place since 2020, a period of six years. ACP-SXM said this is in direct contravention of Article 7 of NV GEBE’s own Articles of Incorporation, which requires a duly appointed Managing Board.

The Temporary Manager further confirmed that NV GEBE’s Collections Policy has never been formally approved by its governing bodies. ACP-SXM said this raises serious questions about the procedural legitimacy of every disconnection action taken against households under that unapproved policy.

ACP-SXM said it regards these admissions as confirmation of the systemic governance failures documented in its petition and shared publicly in connection with the June 15 Community March.

NV GEBE Unable to Identify Its Own Disconnected Households

ACP-SXM said one of the most alarming disclosures from the June 26 meeting was the Temporary Manager’s admission that NV GEBE’s systems are currently unable to identify which households are disconnected.

Although NV GEBE confirmed that disconnections are carried out manually by field personnel, ACP-SXM said no centralized system record exists capturing the disconnected status of affected households. As a result, NV GEBE cannot execute a broad reconnection of households, even when directed to do so.

ACP-SXM described this as a deeply concerning governance failure, stating that it is unacceptable for a public utility with a statutory monopoly over essential electricity and water services not to maintain a reliable system-level record of which consumers it has disconnected.

The organization said the absence of such a record is not a minor operational gap, but a fundamental failure of information governance that compounds the harm suffered by vulnerable households and leaves consumers without recourse.

Additional Governance Deficiencies Raised

ACP-SXM said the Temporary Manager’s disclosures also revealed several additional governance deficiencies.

The organization said reconnection fees of NAf. 10 are being charged to consumers. ACP-SXM questioned the legal and procedural basis for these charges, particularly given that the Collections Policy under which such fees are applied has never been formally approved by the Supervisory Board of Directors, which ACP-SXM said is the competent authority under NV GEBE’s own Articles of Incorporation.

ACP-SXM also said NV GEBE has no effective oversight over electricity theft from the grid. According to the organization, individuals who illegally tap into the electricity grid are not systematically identified or acted upon. ACP-SXM said this represents a direct financial loss to NV GEBE and to all consumers whose tariffs implicitly subsidize the uncollected costs of consumption.

The organization said this also raises serious rule-of-law concerns about selective enforcement, arguing that disconnecting bill-owing households while allowing grid theft to continue unchecked is not a defensible collections strategy.

ACP-SXM further stated that NV GEBE has been executing policies that have not been vetted or approved by the Supervisory Board of Directors. The organization said the admission that the Collections Policy lacks formal Supervisory Board approval is not an isolated procedural lapse, but reflects a broader pattern in which operational decisions with direct legal and financial consequences for consumers are taken outside the governance framework that NV GEBE is legally required to observe.

ACP-SXM called on NV GEBE to immediately account for each of these governance failures, including the unapproved Collections Policy, the absence of reconnection tracking, the charging of reconnection fees under an unapproved policy, and the absence of any systematic response to grid theft.

“These are not matters that can await a future compliance committee. They require immediate corrective action,” ACP-SXM stated.

ACP-SXM Demands Accountability for Already-Disconnected Households

ACP-SXM is also formally demanding that NV GEBE provide a full account of households that were disconnected prior to the June 26, 2026 agreement.

Specifically, ACP-SXM said NV GEBE must disclose whether those disconnections were carried out based on outstanding amounts owed from the period 2022 to 2025, a period in which GEBE’s own billing system was destroyed in the March 2022 cyberattack and accounts were reconstructed manually, or whether the disconnections relate exclusively to the 2026 billing period.

ACP-SXM said this distinction is not merely administrative.

According to the organization, if households were disconnected based on amounts owed from 2022 to 2025, a period during which the Prime Minister publicly confirmed billing inaccuracies and the RAC/BTP Evaluation documented a USD 6.9 million consumer overcharge, then those disconnections may have been executed on the basis of incorrect, unverified or disputed amounts.

ACP-SXM said disconnecting a household on an unvalidated debt is not a lawful collections action, but a harm inflicted on a consumer who may owe less than claimed or nothing at all.

The organization put NV GEBE and its Supervisory Board on notice that if the company is unable to provide an accounting identifying whether each prior disconnection was grounded in a 2022 to 2025 or 2026 outstanding balance, that failure will itself constitute further evidence of gross governance failure.

“A utility that cannot account for why it disconnected a household has no defensible basis for having done so,” ACP-SXM stated.

ACP-SXM Disputes NV GEBE’s Claim That Billing Is Correct

During the June 26 meeting, NV GEBE affirmed its position that billing issued to consumers for the period 2022 to 2024 is correct. ACP-SXM said it firmly and categorically disputes that position.

In response to GEBE’s assertion, ACP-SXM said it presented pointed and specific examples, provided anonymously to protect the privacy of affected consumers, documenting ongoing faults in billing for the period 2022 to 2024. The examples, according to ACP-SXM, illustrated how the reconciliation of payments made by consumers during that period is being applied incorrectly.

ACP-SXM said these examples were presented directly during the meeting and were not rebutted by NV GEBE on the merits.

The organization said its position is supported by the documentary record, including the RAC/BTP Evaluation of April 2025, the Prime Minister’s parliamentary admissions of October 2023, and the Aurora InfoTech cybersecurity report of June 2022.

According to ACP-SXM, these documents collectively establish that GEBE’s billing system was destroyed, that accounts were manually reconstructed without independent verification, and that the fuel clause formula applied throughout the post-2022 period was never subjected to ministerial review.

ACP-SXM said NV GEBE’s unilateral assertion that billing is correct, in the absence of an independent audit, is not a credible or legally sufficient response to documented harm. The organization reiterated its demand for an independent billing audit, calling it a non-negotiable component of any genuine resolution.

ACP-SXM Demands Binding Agreement by July 3

ACP-SXM is formally demanding that NV GEBE enter into a binding legal agreement no later than Friday, July 3, 2026.

The organization said the agreement must capture each of the commitments arising from the June 26 meeting and each of the nine demands set out in ACP-SXM’s formal petition of June 15, 2026.

ACP-SXM said the agreement must include a specific and actionable commitment in response to each of the nine petition demands, confirming which demands will be implemented, on what terms and on what timeline.

The agreement must also include concrete deadlines for each commitment, expressed as calendar dates rather than open-ended undertakings, as well as identification of the responsible party within NV GEBE for each deliverable.

ACP-SXM is further demanding enforceable consequences for non-compliance. The organization said the agreement must be executed by, or under the express written authorization of, the Supervisory Board Chair in accordance with Article 8, paragraph 4 of NV GEBE’s Articles of Incorporation.

“Good-faith dialogue is valuable only when it produces enforceable outcomes,” ACP-SXM stated. “The consumers of St. Maarten have waited long enough. ACP-SXM will not accept further procedural delay as a substitute for substantive accountability.”

Background and Legal Context

ACP-SXM submitted its formal petition to NV GEBE on June 15, 2026. The petition cited documented consumer overcharges, the misapplication of the fuel clause, the absence of an approved Collections Policy and corporate governance deficiencies, including the six-year C-suite vacancy.

On the same day, ACP-SXM organized the Community March for Rights, Accountability & Transparency to amplify the voices of affected consumers and call for urgent government intervention.

ACP-SXM said the petition was supported by technical findings from the RAC/BTP Tariff Evaluation Report and publicly confirmed by St. Maarten’s Prime Minister in Parliament, documenting that consumers were overcharged by approximately USD 6.9 million.

Following NV GEBE’s legal response through Lexwell Attorneys at Law, ACP-SXM issued a detailed counter-response on June 25, 2026, rebutting each of the positions advanced by GEBE’s counsel.

ACP-SXM said its counter-response addressed the force majeure defense, which it said is foreclosed by GEBE’s own commissioned cybersecurity report; the temporary management defense, which ACP-SXM said is contradicted by fourteen months of precedent under former Temporary Manager Thomas Roggendorf; and the claim that GEBE cannot act without government involvement, which ACP-SXM described as self-defeating given fifteen years of unilateral fuel clause applications.

ACP-SXM said it stands by the legal accuracy of every statement in its petition and counter-response.

Richardson: Governance Crisis Runs Deeper Than Any Single Policy Failure

“This agreement is a first, concrete step toward protecting St. Maarten’s consumers. But the disclosures made at this meeting, that GEBE cannot identify its own disconnected households, is charging reconnection fees under an unapproved policy, has no systematic response to electricity theft, and asserts that its billing is correct despite documented evidence to the contrary, demonstrate that the governance crisis at NV GEBE runs far deeper than any single policy failure,” said ACP-SXM President Peggy-Ann Richardson.

“We have set July 3 as the deadline for a binding agreement. The consumers of St. Maarten are watching, and ACP-SXM will pursue every legal remedy available to ensure they receive the accountability they are owed,” Richardson said.

ACP-SXM said it remains guarded and reserved in its position and expressly maintains its right to pursue all legal remedies, administrative, civil, constitutional and criminal, against NV GEBE on behalf of the consumers of St. Maarten.

The organization said the agreements reached on June 26, 2026 do not constitute a waiver of any rights, claims or demands previously asserted by ACP-SXM.

ACP-SXM said it will take further action, without hesitation, should NV GEBE fail to honor its commitments or fail to engage in good faith with the binding agreement process by the July 3, 2026 deadline.

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