THE HAGUE – The governments of Curaçao and Aruba literally agreed to the Netherlands’ offer to refinance their COVID-19 loans five minutes before midnight on Tuesday.
This agreement came just in the nick of time as the current loans were set to expire on October 10th. Without an agreement, the loans would have become immediately callable. To ensure a smooth refinancing process, Secretary of State Van Huffelen had requested that Prime Ministers Pisas and Wever-Croes submit the signed loan agreement no later than Tuesday morning Dutch time. Both ignored the deadline and sent the documents shortly before midnight, according to BZK.
Wever-Croes has indeed signed but has no intention of dropping her opposition to the offered interest rate of 6.9%. Aruba is not eligible for a lower interest rate because it refuses to regulate financial oversight through a Kingdom Act. It is not known why Curaçao waited so long to sign the loan agreement.
Sint Maarten submitted the documents on time.
