From the beginning of the nineties of the last century, the two largest political parties, which were alternately responsible for the governance of Aruba, engaged in politics and/or conducted administration in such a way that the criteria of good governance were structurally violated. This included the following characteristics:

  1. Structural violation of laws (e.g. Constitution, Accountability Law)
  2. Structural ignoring of good governance criteria (e.g. transparency)
  3. Structural ignoring of warnings/recommendations (e.g. from the Advisory Board, General Audit Office, Social Economic Council, Chamber of Commerce, Central Bank, IMF)
  4. Structurally deficient financial management/policy (chaos, inadequate/ absent control)
  5. Structural ignoring of the financial consequences of policy (sky-high debt and interest obligations)
  6. Structural omission of accountability (no approved Annual Accounts!)
  7. Structural marginalization of the checks & balances system
  8. Structural indifference to social wellbeing (failure to comply with “duty of care”)
  9. Structural fixation on own and party interests (ministry = “business”)
  10. Structural Parliamentary approval for (bad) policy pursued

This structurally violated the democratic constitutional state, as well as the (financial) sustainability of autonomy. In fact, there was systematic undermining in both areas. Considering all this, it cannot be otherwise concluded that government criminality has been ongoing from the early 1990s onwards.

On the basis of the foregoing, it can be stated that the political parties have applied abuse of power on a large scale, resulting in: the unnecessary/unlawful appointment of government personnel; the seemingly deliberate little or no implementation of effective cost-saving technology for improving governmental processes; the dubious way in which costly government projects were dealt with (including the structural lack of maintenance!); the neglect of the government’s duty of care for its citizens, all with serious financial and socio-economic consequences for the Country. The community has been done great injustice with these structural wrongful acts!