WILLEMSTAD - The ABC and the BES islands receive 16.5 million euros in emergency aid from the Netherlands. It is not yet known how this money will be distributed among the six islands.

Aid should go to the citizens most affected by the corona crisis. This is according to Undersecretary Raymond Knops of the Interior and Kingdom Relations announced on Friday during a press conference. It is for food packages and personal hygiene products, he says.

No budget support

Therefore, governments of the islands should not use this amount to make up for deficits in their budgets. Because for this, Knops emphasizes again, it is first necessary to look at which austerity measures the islands themselves are taking.

“Now that tourism is no longer receiving income, countries will have to come up with a plan on how to compensate for this loss of income. This means that cuts must be made on the expenditure side.”

The Netherlands had previously shown that the high salaries of politicians, top civil servants and directors of public companies should be tackled in particular. It is one of the conditions for the autonomous islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, in particular, to receive budget support.

Knops complimented Aruba, which is already taking measures to this end with the Wever-Croes standard (variant Balkenende standard).

This standard allows directors to earn no more than 130 percent of the minister's wages (that wages are approximately 15 thousand guilders). But the Aruban prime minister admits that she cannot apply this standard to all director salaries immediately, due to existing employment contracts.

A Rhuggenaath standard was discussed in Curaçao. however, the decision has not yet been taken.