THE HAGUE – The Dutch Court of Audit believes that from now on the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament should be asked for approval in advance if new loans are granted to Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten.
In 2020, the Netherlands lent 621 million euros to the three countries to support the liquidity position. For the budget adjustments required for these loans, Undersecretary in charge of Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops made use of the option offered by the Government Accounts Act to make expenditure in emergency situations without prior approval from parliament. The Court of Audit: “In order to do justice to parliament’s right to budget, we recommend examining whether it is possible to ask parliament for approval in advance by means of a regular budget law for future new loans.”
The first loans (137.6 million euros) were, in the opinion of the Court of Audit, even an “illegal transaction” because the Second Chamber and the Senate were only informed after the money had already been transferred. The Court also points out that Parliament did not receive the required risk analyzes in time last year. “We recommend complying with the relevant rules and informing parliament in good time about such risk analyzes.”