WILLEMSTAD - The Court of Audit (AR) has been running into problems since 2013. This is according to Amerigo Thodé MP yesterday in a meeting of Parliament. Under official laws and regulations, AR is the entity that conducts all investigations for the Members of Parliament. The AR is authorized to examine all incoming and outgoing funds from the government.
Thodé said during a meeting of the Central Committee that in the same year Parliament ordered the AR to investigate the Central Bank, but the AR was not given access to the information. It later became clear that a private institution could do the investigation into the Central Bank.
However, the AR continued to run into problems, because the same thing happened in 2015 and 2016 when an investigation into the telecommunication company UTS had to be done. Here too, the AR was denied access, this time even after a court decision. The same happened at PSB Bank and housing foundation FKP.
At the time, Thodé came up with a proposal to amend the law, which includes the AR. In this way, it will be laid down by law that the AR may enter any institution/entity if the government deems this desirable.
This proposal has been in place since 2017 and based on the parliamentary reports, it is clear that the situation has not changed to date. The moment the law is amended, the AR will finally be able to really get to work with its investigations. This means that every company and every entity in which the government has interests or grants subsidies can be investigated.