On the way out of the closed-door meeting with the Cabinet Wever – Croes II called on Thursday afternoon the speaker of the parliament, MP of the AVP fraction, Dr. Arthur Dowers opened all the outskirts against the mismanagement and bad intentions around the helicopter contract that today has the Police Force of Aruba and the island all facing embarrassment by the drug trafficking fights.
The Minister of Justice put few documents ‘for your perusal’ and what can be brought to light is that there was a ‘chat’ with the negotiation and signing of such contracts. Along with that, the president argued that there was a public detachment that he later canceled because supposedly no company met the requirements. However, later there was a negotiation on the side with whom he finally got the contract.
That is why many people then have publicly denounced that the process has not run as it should and now they are right,” Dowers said outside the parliament building on Thursday, Wednesday. It is said in this regard that “the worst is still that the government that fills its mouth with the word transparency today, instead of letting everyone see these documents, hides them in parliament.”And instead of taking responsibility, the president is to continue to look to the past by the fingertip of the opposition thirteen points ahead with it doesn’t fit the truth.
Dowers again challenges the government saying: “He stands up that there was a correct public detachment and that is a lie and I challenge him to take out all the documents that he has brought in parliament and we are going to a process to get all the documents and if we have to go to court, he goes to court so that the people see how Cabinet Wever- Croes-Oduber-Bikker worked the time there and how they dealt this helicopter.”What was also very remarkable for Dowers, is how the person who turned himself in to the DEA first government said he was marketing manager, today the government says he was the commercial manager, but also that in the document they found to see, different people with the same fame are mentioned.
About him, Justice Minister Rocco Tjon now admits that the DEA investigation is one that started from 2021 and that the government was aware of it. At that time he sent an inquiry to the company that said that person no longer worked with them. So the obligatory question is: why hasn’t the government itself come forward and say that? Why was the police force left in the dark about this information all that time?
Dowers: “If this minister was serious and took the integrity of the KPA seriously, when it became known that this person is on drugs, you would have cleared everything up. A person who sat with you at the table and the firm, which is in a big drug trafficking investigation, together with the company, then you didn’t even warn the police force to let them through the embarrassment they were going through on weekends when the news came back. My impression is that they thought they would keep covering it and no one would find out.”The fact that the government of Aruba knew about it since 2021 also makes the ministers and the government have no legal basis to stop the contract and that is the real motivation as to why the minister came forward last Monday demanding that senior police officers be dragged back over their decision to stop using the helicopter. It puts the police force in an annoying situation. The Dowers MP believes that the police should be aware of this every time the justice incumbent says that he is pro-police.
