During the weekly press conference of the PPA faction, MP Eduard Pieters launched a harsh critique of the DOW (Department of Public Works) budget presented by the government, calling the management an insult to the intelligence of the Aruban people. According to Pieters, the government collects taxes from citizens like clockwork, but when it is time to deliver dignified and safe infrastructure, they hide behind excuses and political propaganda.
The figure causing the most indignation was the revelation that, according to the DOW budget, the government intends to invest only 3.5 million florins in asphalting and road maintenance for 2026. In practice, this represents barely 7.5 kilometers of asphalt for all of Aruba. “To give the people an idea of what 7.5 kilometers is: imagine the stretch from the airport roundabout to the Guardian Group roundabout. This is what the government and the coalition supporting them present as ‘progress’ for a country with more than 90,000 vehicles,” Pieters declared.
The people pay millions, but roads remain disaster zones Pieters laid out the financial contradiction with a simple but devastating calculation. With a conservative average of Afl. 350 for car tax and over 90,000 vehicles in Aruba, the government collects approximately 30 to 31 million florins per year in motor vehicle tax (motorrijtuigbelasting) alone. However, barely 11% of this income goes back into maintaining and fixing roads.
“Citizens pay in full. The government does not deliver in full,” Pieters emphasized. “While the people pay taxes, their cars break in potholes, people take risks in traffic, and Aruba’s infrastructure becomes more dangerous every day.” For PPA, the problem is not a lack of resources, but a lack of priority, vision, and political management. “Aruba does not lack income; Aruba lacks serious governance.”
Coalition voted against their own position According to Pieters, the situation became even more absurd when AVP and FUTURO MPs rejected PPA’s motion to convert car tax into a “destination tax” (bestemmingsbelasting), which would guarantee the money goes directly to DOW and road safety. Yet, the same coalition later presented a motion acknowledging that:
There is insufficient control over the budget;
There is no guarantee of where the money goes;
The current financial management is unclear.
“They rejected our motion and then presented a motion that challenges the budget itself,” Pieters criticized. Even more striking, the coalition ended up voting in favor of a budget they had officially put into doubt. “If you say via a motion that the budget is not well-structured, how can you vote in favor of it afterward? That is political hypocrisy.”
Road safety used as a mere campaign slogan Pieters also reminded the public that Aruba is facing a real road safety crisis. Speed bumps, speed detectors, traffic engineering, and preventive maintenance are all sacrificed due to a lack of investment. “The people are asking for safety. The government answers by giving the bare minimum,” he said.
“When you collect 31 million florins in taxes and you give barely 3.5 million back to the people, that is not progress. That is institutional abandonment disguised with political slogans,” Pieters concluded.
