Today Newspaper St. Maarten

Opinion: Statistics

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Some of the stuff readers love so much on the website that was so brutally attacked by Public Housing Minister Maurice Lake this week definitely does not fall in the category of statistics. Go figure.

What did we read there from an anonymous blogger (whose name we suspect to be Bibi Shaw)? That the articles this newspaper published about former Justice Minister Roland Duncan are “all lies.”

Well, we recognize a lie when we see one, and this one definitely qualifies. Just for the record: the stories Today published in March establishing the links between two Duncan-companies and a brothel in sucker Garden are based on solid information obtained from court documents and correspondence between the two warring parties.

There is therefore no doubt that the Duncan-companies have been the directors of Hypnotic Hotel and entertainment NV since 2009. Hypnotic manages the Seaman’s club brothel in Sucker Garden. Now that Duncan is no longer minister of justice, nobody gives a rat’s behind about what he does. But at the time we thought the link between his function at the justice ministry and the prostitution business plain wrong.

If our stories had been baseless, the former minister would without any doubt have taken legal action. Instead, he opted to deny allegations this newspaper never made, and for the rest he remained awfully quiet.