Green and yellow parties are united in their advertising that financial supervision undermines the parliament’s budget’s right. What they don’t explain is that the budget right includes all the powers to control the government, culminating in the power to send a minister home if the minister doesn’t do his job as parliament wishes. Aruba’s history since Status Aparte demonstrates that never has a government had its financial administration in order, practically every year the national debt has increased, appointed more people in government for political reasons and delivered budgets with ever-increasing deficits. Parliament did not send a finance minister home because of misconduct.
Neither does parliament act when the government violates the Constitution when the budget was delivered late, when ministers violate the accounting law by overspending the budget, or when the government fails to deliver certified annual accounts on time. It is precisely because parliamentary control is failing that financial supervision is important.
Another argument that is being used is that supervision doesn’t work. But the reality is that in Aruba supervision is working. When the government delivered budgets with an average deficit of 300 million florins per year in 2012, 2013 and 2014, the Dutch financial supervision forced the government to reduce the budget deficit. The Netherlands has forced the government to accept CAFT, which puts a microscope on everything the government does financially. Thanks to pressure from this financial supervision, the government has managed to deliver the last two budgets on time. It is also thanks to financial supervision that there is a major effort to reduce the national debt, optimize the government apparatus and reduce the cost of goods and services that the government uses.
This control our own parliament could have done since 1986, but the parliament never did it. It is not fair that the parliament allows the government to collect 1 billion florins per year in taxes and import duties, without having its financial administration in order. The parliament agrees that the government creates plenty of opportunities for corruption and money fraud to take place. At the end of the day, people pay for the bad governance and corruption. If we want our children and grandchildren to have a chance to be prosperous, if we want decent care for our elders, we must urgently work on good governance. Without good governance, government services will be of inferior quality, education will continue to be a disaster, and the quality of our elders will continue to be suboptimal. Furthermore, working people will never have the prospect of creating a prosperous future for themselves and their families.