WILLEMSTAD – Curaçao’s Parliament is still dealing with a backlog in the formal approval of the country’s annual accounts, according to the 2025 annual report of the General Audit Chamber.
The report explains that once the Audit Chamber has issued its findings on the national accounts, the Governor must submit a draft national ordinance to Parliament within two months to formally establish the annual accounts and grant discharge to ministers for their financial management.
That process remains incomplete for several years.
According to the Audit Chamber’s overview, the annual accounts for 2018 were completed and published, while the 2019 annual accounts were only handled in a public meeting on February 27, 2026. For the years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, the process was still not fully completed in the overview included in the annual report. The 2024 annual accounts had not yet reached the Audit Chamber stage.
The delay matters because the formal approval of annual accounts is not merely an administrative formality. It is the legal moment at which Parliament assesses the government’s financial management and decides whether ministers can be discharged for the way public funds were managed.
The Audit Chamber also notes that its reports on annual accounts are usually not handled in a standing committee, because they are discussed together with the draft ordinance to establish the annual accounts. In November 2025, Parliament did discuss the report on the trajectory toward obtaining a clean audit opinion for the 2026 accounts in a Central Committee meeting.
The Audit Chamber says it is working with Parliament to organize presentations on its reports as soon as possible after submission.
The backlog shows that producing audit reports is only one part of public accountability. The second part is political follow-up. Without timely parliamentary handling, findings about financial management, errors, uncertainties and ministerial responsibility remain unresolved for years.