WILLEMSTAD – The Curaçao Audit Chamber (ARC) was not informed during the process of hearing and rebuttal that the statutes of the Stichting Overheidsaccountantsbureau (SOAB) had been amended prior to the public release of the ARC’s report on the 2023 annual accounts. This follows from a press communication issued by drs. Luigi A. Faneyte MSc., former auditor of the ARC and current faction staff member of the PAR.
According to Faneyte, a careful reading of the ARC report shows no indication that SOAB disclosed any statutory amendments during the formal hoor-en-wederhoor phase. The Rekenkamer explicitly based its assessment on the statutes as they applied during the audited period and as they were known to the ARC at that time, combined with the actual activities carried out by SOAB in 2023.
The ARC report makes clear that its analysis relied on SOAB’s statutory task description, particularly Article 3, which outlines the foundation’s mandate. Nowhere in the report is reference made to amended or updated statutes. Faneyte notes that this indicates the ARC proceeded on the assumption that the statutes were unchanged, an assumption that was never corrected by SOAB during the review process.
In its formal response to the ARC, as quoted in the report, SOAB argued that it acted within its existing statutory framework. It referred to its authority to provide support in areas such as administrative organization and financial management and emphasized that it did not have decision-making power and did not act as an internal auditor in the specific projects under scrutiny. Crucially, Faneyte stresses that SOAB relied on an interpretation of the existing statutes, rather than informing the ARC that those statutes had already been formally amended.
The absence of any reference to amended statutes is, according to Faneyte, decisive. The ARC report does not state that SOAB informed the Rekenkamer of recent changes, that a new statutory basis existed for executive tasks, or that the ARC’s conclusions were influenced by revised statutes or announced amendments. Had such information been provided during hoor en wederhoor, the ARC would have been obliged to explicitly mention it, legally assess it, and incorporate it into its final conclusions. This did not occur.
Faneyte also points out that the ARC’s legal assessment concerns the 2023 financial year and is necessarily based on the legal framework and statutes in force during that period. Even if statutes were amended after the hearing phase or after completion of the report, such changes would have no bearing on the legality of actions taken in 2023 and could not retroactively remedy identified irregularities. More importantly, he emphasizes that the ARC was not informed of any already implemented statutory changes before publication.
The press communication responds directly to public claims, including in a recent newspaper article, suggesting that the ARC relied on “old statutes” and therefore presented a misleading picture. Based on the ARC report itself, Faneyte concludes that the Rekenkamer cannot be blamed for failing to consider amended statutes, as it was never informed of them during the formal review process. As such, he argues, the characterization of the ARC’s findings as “misleading” is not supported by the contents of the report.
In summary, Faneyte concludes that the ARC based its judgment on the applicable legal framework and SOAB’s actual role in 2023, that SOAB did not notify the ARC of amended statutes during hoor en wederhoor, and that any later statutory changes are legally irrelevant to the ARC’s assessment of that reporting year.