WILLEMSTAD - According to the second man of the new coalition party MFK, Charles Cooper, Curaçao does not need money from the Netherlands. The candidate minister announced that the new government will present a Plan B soon.
According to Cooper, they will not accept money from the Netherlands under ‘wild’ conditions. “If they want to shove COVO down our throat they can keep their money,” says the candidate minister. Cooper also sends a message loud and clear to the Netherlands not to stand in Curaçao’s way when the government presents its own alternative. Cooper says that he will not divulge yet what Plan B is because he does not want anybody to know their strategy. But according to Cooper, Curaçao will look for 2.5 billion guilders (1.4 billion dollars) to invest in the economy.
Cooper also says that the 2.5 billion must be divided in five years which means that Curaçao receives 500 million annually for investment. This is the new government’s plan to invest in Curaçao’s economy. According to Cooper, the Netherlands will play its game to also stop the support funding. At the end of June, the Netherlands must refinance the support fund to help recover Curaçao’s economy. But Cooper says he knows the Netherlands is playing its game. The Netherlands is blackmailing because they want to give only one-month of financial assistance to the Rhuggenaath government instead of three months to create some breathing space until August or September.
But Cooper is not worried, he says, they have experts working on this right now and soon they will present Plan B. Cooper did not mention who these experts are.
In a letter to the two political leaders of the new coalition parties, Undersecretary of Kingdom Relations, Raymond Knops informed that if these two politicians do not want to participate in the negotiations, the Netherlands will cancel all financial support and Curaçao must start paying off the loan in April 2022.