A ruling party parliamentarian in Suriname has formally pushed the national government to open its books on public funding allocated to Suriname’s flag carrier, Surinaamse Luchtvaart Maatschappij (SLM), calling for full clarity on how much taxpayer money the airline has received and what tangible outcomes have been delivered with that support.
Mahinder Jogi, a member of the National Assembly for the VHP party, raised a series of formal questions during Thursday’s plenary session focused on current affairs, pressing the administration of President Jennifer Simons to answer for the ongoing subsidies flowing to the struggling state-owned airline.
Jogi opened his questioning by recalling a core campaign pledge from President Simons ahead of her inauguration: before taking office, Simons positioned both the revitalization of SLM and the expansion of Suriname’s tourism sector as top policy priorities for her administration. Despite that promised focus, Jogi told the assembly that the public has been given no clear accounting of how public funds allocated to the airline have been used.
According to Jogi, SLM currently receives millions of U.S. dollars in government support every single month. The parliamentarian put forward a direct targeted question to the cabinet: what is the full cumulative sum of subsidies that SLM has received over the first full year of the Simons administration?
Beyond the total amount of funding, Jogi is demanding details on the concrete progress that has been delivered with the public investment. He has asked the government to confirm whether the airline’s overall financial standing has actually improved following a year of sustained subsidies, whether the carrier has added new jobs to its workforce, and whether any foreign consulting firms have been contracted with the public funds.
Jogi has formally requested that the executive branch provide the National Assembly with a complete, detailed response to his questions as quickly as possible, to meet basic standards of parliamentary and public transparency.