WILLEMSTAD.- So far, the Government has not obtained a reaction on the letter sent last week to the Minister-President of Curaçao to Mark Rutte. In his letter, Minister-President Rhuggenaath asked Rutte to grant more financial space and take into account the deficit in the Curaçao budget for 2019 and 2020. He proposes to Rutte not to insist on closing the deficit of these two years, Rhuggenaath wants to pay the equivalent debts between 2017 and 2020 back in the years between 2021 and 2025.
As is known, the College of Financial Supervision advised the Ministers of the Kingdom yesterday, to give Curaçao an instruction to balance the expenses and income for more years within the budget. Before giving this instruction, it would provide the Government with an opportunity to present its vision in this regard.
Rhuggenaath in a reaction noted: “In the letter addressed to Rutte, we asked for “administrative consultations” so that the country Curaçao can talk with Minister-President Rutte and the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom on this issue. We still have not enough job opening, we also have a situation of poverty in our country, from the beginning we said that we do not believe in an austerity program of partial cuts. We want to invest too. We need space. Looking at the advice of Cft, which says that in reality our program needs time to implement the appropriate adjustments, and we also believe that in the framework of more years, we can recover the previous deficit. We hope to analyze the letter together and let us explain our context and our reality, but simultaneously we have demonstrated our will, to take the measures in order to strengthen our public finances. Cft recognizes this also in his letter.
According to Rhuggenaath, through the Plenipotentiary Minister an answer was requested about when this delegation from Curaçao could be sent to the Netherlands, to discuss these topics. “Before the topic is included in the agenda of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom, we provide that for the second week of April, we would like to have this conversation, so that in this way they can have a better understanding of our real situation caused by the situation of Venezuela, and for us, to look at the future.”
Rhuggenaath, Cft gave a recommendation according to the law and its tasks. ‘Naturally, we have our proposal, which in fact we have already presented and it is not another, that give us more space and within this framework, we must enter into important agreements that can help Curaçao to execute its plan according to its capacity and possibly with the help of the Netherlands. “
