THE HAGUE -Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk is in favour of maintaining a light form of financial supervision after the Financial Supervision Kingdom Law for Curaçao and St. Maarten has ended.
Plasterk stated this during a debate on Tuesday with the First Chamber of the Dutch Parliament with on the agenda the evaluation of the new constitutional relationship within the Kingdom that went into effect on October 10, 2010.
During that debate, Senator Ruard Ganzevoort asked about the financial supervision that was in place for Curaçao and St. Maarten and what would happen after the Kingdom Law ended. “We see the importance of checks and balances such as external supervision and accountability. We therefore ask the Minister whether he has a shared future vision with the Caribbean countries on this matter,” said Ganzevoort.
Plasterk explained that indeed the Kingdom Law regulated a termination of the financial supervision, executed by the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT. “I think that it would be a good idea to maintain a form of light-touch supervision.”
The Minister noted that the Netherlands was also subjected to financial supervision, in this case by the European Union (EU). That supervision didn’t hurt when the Netherlands kept under the prescribed 3 per cent budget deficit norm.
A light form of supervision for Curaçao and St. Maarten was also in the interest of the countries. This because of the standing registration of the Netherlands for loans of the two Dutch Caribbean countries and the associated low interest on these loans.
“That is only possible because the Netherlands stands guarantee. That requires being able to keep a finger on the pulse one way or the other to prevent things from going terribly wrong,” said Plasterk.
Referring to Ganzevoort’s question on the involvement of the two overseas countries, the Minister said that he didn’t want to anticipate on that aspect. “They will also have to understand that if they want to make use of the standing registration for loans, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to maintain some form of checking of the finances.”
The Minister said he wasn’t only referring to the countries’ budgets, but also to the large loans that were secured on Government-owned companies. “The CFT looks at this, but we will also need to keep an eye in the future to ensure that not all of a sudden large amounts are going to investments which later on can wreck the country’s finances.”
Bron: CuracaoChronical