WILLEMSTAD - The General Audit Chamber of Curaçao has raised serious concerns about the government’s continued violations of the national budget law, revealing that ministries regularly spend beyond their approved budgets without proper authorization from Parliament or the Council of Ministers.

According to the Chamber’s August 2025 report “Traject naar een goedkeurende controleverklaring bij de jaarrekening 2026”, the government is still not complying with Article 47 of the Landsverordening Comptabiliteit 2010 (Lv C-2010), which limits when ministries may deviate from the approved budget.

Under this law, exceptions are only permitted in two cases:

In the national interest, such as during war or natural disasters; and

In cases of urgent and unforeseen needs that could not have been anticipated in the annual budget, and only with prior approval from the Council of Ministers.

However, the Ministry of Finance has acknowledged that this procedure is routinely bypassed. Ministries justify the overspending by arguing that the supplementary budget process takes too long, and that waiting for approval would “endanger normal operations.”

The Audit Chamber strongly disagrees with this approach, warning that these practices constitute legal violations and create recurring irregularities in the national accounts. “The ministries are not complying with the law and continue to exceed the budget without prior authorization,” the report states.

The Chamber emphasized that these breaches contribute directly to the government’s ongoing failure to obtain a clean audit opinion from its external auditors. Despite repeated warnings since 2010, legality errors continue to appear in the financial statements year after year.

As Curaçao approaches the 2026 deadline for its first-ever unqualified audit, the Chamber calls for immediate enforcement of budget discipline and a return to strict legal compliance. Without these changes, the island’s financial credibility will remain in doubt, both at home and within the wider Kingdom.