Parliamentarians Evelyna Wever-Croes and Rocco Tjon submitted a formal petition to the Minister of Tourism, Transport, and Labor, Wendrick Cicilia, based on the Landsverordening openbaarheid van bestuur (LOB, National Ordinance on Public Access to Information). Through this petition, they are demanding total transparency and access to all documents related to the waste management project in Aruba in which the Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA) was involved.
According to the two parliamentarians, they had already requested insight into these documents during a previous meeting. However, they have not received anything to date. For this reason, they opted to make a formal appeal for the government to make all this information available.
The role of ATA and the legal basis The petition focuses on ATA’s role in the project. Wever-Croes and Tjon are requesting copies of all letters, emails, and memos where the government asked ATA to initiate the waste project. Furthermore, they want to see all minutes, records, and decisions from meetings between ATA and the government on this topic. They are also requesting the RFPs (“Requests for Proposals”) that ATA allegedly sent to Serlimar and Ecotech, along with all proposals received from these and other involved parties.
An important point is the legal basis. The parliamentarians are asking for all legal advice and documents evaluating whether ATA has the authority to sign a contract with a private company for waste management, outside of its normal tourism promotion duties. They also ask to see all evaluation reports, scoring matrices, and the final decision to award the project to the winning company.
Digital format and legal deadline In their letter, they requested to receive all documents digitally, in PDF format, via the official system. In the event that certain information cannot be made public, they ask the Minister to provide an explanation for each document, specifying which article of the LOB is being used as the basis to withhold the information. Additionally, the parliamentarians ask for confirmation of receipt of the petition and for the Minister to respond within the legal timeframe for an LOB request.
Waste management has become a very strong point of discussion in Parliament in recent months. With this request, Wever-Croes and Tjon want to bring clarity to how the decisions, selection, and contract took place through ATA. As of now, Minister Cicilia has not yet responded.
