It was in August last year that a faction of the Arubano People’s Party (AVP) first requested to visit parliament to discuss the rising cost of living. Eight months later, the meeting finally took place and AVP leader Mike Eman was one of the first on Monday morning to address the urgency of the issue.
The MPs began by saying that more than 50,000 people in our country today are among the most vulnerable because they do not reach the minimum income as calculated by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Not only do they receive a pension, but also the majority of workers fall under this group.
Eman described the situation of more than 50,000 citizens as one of extreme poverty, a situation that began in 2017 in two figures that clearly mark the moment when things in the country began to change.
To illustrate the contrast, the AVP leader said that Aruba was a society, opposed by all political parties in government, some decades ago recognizing that a general law was needed to protect workers from working more than eight hours a day. However, they are now forced to make enough money to support their families.
Aruba was the land where the law was created to protect those who did not have money to pay for an art or to pay for medicine. Pesey introduced an AZV as a guaranteed medical care. Today, according to Eman, is the concept gradually destroyed. “Every day there is a pensioner who barely has enough money to pay for his other needs, who today gets two medicines, which is enormously damaging to his health”, Eman said in parliament. The same thing happened with education, where older schools were subsidized and where parents had to pay 500 florins in school fees.
The reason for this is very clear and it is that since 2017 the country’s priority has changed from serving the common good to serving the private interest; the interest of others and not the general interest. SVB figures show that Aruba has 22,000 pensioners who receive an income below the minimum to live. Since 2022 the pensioner has given back 700 florins. Eman: These are the things that have been started since 2017 that have resulted in the doubling of the BBO from the previous 3% to 6% which is put on three scales which is an 18% increase in the cost of living of our citizens. Then we went up by 1% to 3%, now we’re going to put another 7% on the border.
This is the reality that Aruba is living in, Eman affirmed and insisted that during the budget process, AVP delivered an alternative budget calling for an increase in the reparations deficit to cover these deficits. We would have removed the money from the goods in service so that there would be no need to remove the medicine from our grandparents. However, the government’s choice was different. Little by little, they have broken the entire social barrier that was created for our people, a barrier that is sufficient to cover basic needs.
The AVP leader emphasized that the figures he presented during the public meeting, are not something invented, but are taken from official reports of CBS and SVB and are also known to the government. They indicate that 56.1% of those who have a job earn 2,500 florins or less. That means that 25,000 workers living below the minimum standard of living in this country cannot survive. The situation is even worse for those with bystanders or pensions. Eman shared the example of a disabled person who lives in a village house in Noord. She has a budget of 950 florins of which she has to pay 475 florins for the house and 475 florins to live.
Meanwhile, every step taken by the Wever-Croes II Cabinet is another measure that applies to the citizen. The Central Bank found, from a survey of the financial situation of families in Aruba, that 36% of households are worried about excessive debt. For Eman, this is a logical consequence of the policy taken since 2017, because almost half of your population is living every month with a deficit of 750 florins.
Love asks what the government is doing to address this painful situation? Who in this government has accepted the responsibility to say that we will address this deficit? Do we come up with a change to the repaired slate as the AVP faction suggested? How can we avoid even more foolishness? Instead, the Wever-Croes II Cabinet came together to try to “kill the messenger” without worrying about the message.
“Don’t worry about the handicapped who have to live with 475 florins, don’t worry about the one who earns a million dollars who doesn’t know how to pay for his child’s school fees, don’t worry about the pensioner who doesn’t know where to get money to pay for his medication; let’s say seven ministers, one of them is invited, but seven came to kill the messenger”, the MP said, firmly indicating that you can try to kill the messenger, but the statistics are in the report of the instance and seven ministers can’t hide it.