THE HAGUE - Undersecretary Raymond Knops (Kingdom Relations) responded in an official statement on Friday afternoon to Aruba's decision to borrow a maximum of 400 million Aruban florins on the local capital market. Various Dutch media report this.
Knops calls this decision incomprehensible because, according to him, Aruba saddles its population with 21 million Aruban florins in interest annually. The Aruban government states in a response that the loan is much smaller and amounts to approximately 170 million Aruban florins.
"How do you explain it to the citizens of Aruba that in these times of the corona crisis, every citizen lost almost 1400 extra florins for the next 7 years," says Knops. Moreover, according to him, the national debt will increase to more than 5 billion Aruban florins. This gives the country a debt ratio of 127 percent of the gross domestic product. “In addition, I wonder: as a country do you want to be in the top ten countries with the highest public debt? Do you want to saddle the next generation with this problem in this way?”
Aruban Prime Minister Evelyn Wever-Croes and Finance Minister Xiomara Maduro stated in a statement on Friday evening that the loan is smaller, namely 60 million Aruban florins and 60 million dollars.
Aruba is in a serious financial crisis due to the corona crisis. The Netherlands has previously provided loans; with an interest rate of zero percent. The Netherlands sets conditions for a new loan that, according to Aruba, are disadvantageous for the country. The country does not agree to this. However, Knops calls the loan on the capital market "not the way to get out of this crisis."