The ministers and members of Parliament cannot simply reverse the reduction on their salary that has been applied as a result of the liquidity support from the Netherlands.
The moment of expiry must in any case be after June 30, 2023, as stated in two Memorandum of Amendment (NvW) with the same purport to the National Ordinances on Financial Provision of Ministers and States. The NvW sets several conditions for the possible reversal of the salary discount. It now appears that the two NvWs were sent to the States on March 17 and placed in the hands of this newspaper. Tomorrow the National Ordinances will be discussed in a central committee meeting of Parliament.
In addition to the date mentioned, it has also been laid down that the discount on the remuneration of ministers and members of Parliament can only be withdrawn by National Decree and only when the support from the Netherlands has ended or no recourse is made to Article 25 of the Financial Supervision Act. (Rft) to deviate from the budget norm. Moreover, the National Decree must first be submitted to the governor and approved by the Minister of Finance. Finally, an evaluation of the public finances must show that the termination of the discount is in line with the state of the public finances.
But, as the AL also writes: ,, should be considered that it is not desirable for a temporary arrangement to become permanent. After all, the starting point of the draft National Ordinance (s) is still the connection with the remuneration of civil servants, on the understanding that the ministers (and members of Parliament, ed.) Are paid at the highest level. ”
The highest level. is actually scale 18 with an addition of 25 percent for the ministers. But scale 18 has not yet been officially formalized. As long as this is not the case, if the salary discount is reversed by National Decree, ministers and members of Parliament will revert to scale 17, step 9. The Memorandum: ,, As stated in the Explanatory Memorandum, a process is currently underway for formalizing the scale 18 in the remuneration of civil servants. This process was started because scale 18 was provided as part of the official structure at the start of Country Curaçao in 2010 and has since been applied for the remuneration of the secretaries-general. This process to formalization has not been completed. ”
The AL also includes: “Any formalization of scale 18 can only be worked through after the discount has ended.” And: “It seems desirable to the government that formalization of scale 18 cannot continue during the period that the Country is struggling with the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.” https://antilliaansdagblad.com/en/nieuws-menu/23454-korting-salaris-tot-medio-2023