Financial sector warns about undermining of safeguarding function

December 08, 2011 3:34 PM

The financial sector looks at the deliberations closely during the coming Kingdom Conference in The Hague. The chairman of the Curaçao International Financial Services Association (Cifa) and former premier, Etienne Ys, warns about ‘undermining of the Statute and immobilization of the Kingdom government’.

Ys is very concerned about the current government’s attitude regarding consensus Statute Laws and financial supervision.The financial sector is concerned that the government wants to make changes in the consensus Statute Laws or eliminate them – whatever the costs. It mainly regards the Statute Laws that regulate the financial supervision, justice, administration of law and the foreign representation.

According to Ys, the power of the Kingdom is actually the fact there are numerous legal instruments that guarantee a safeguarding function within the Kingdom. As an example, Ys mentions the rating Curaçao recently received from the American credit critic Standards & Poor’s. A rather high rating, which is actually due to the fact that Curaçao is part of the Kingdom, where safeguarding instruments are still applicable.

A possible annulment of these safeguarding functions will at one stroke nullify the most effective elements for the marking of Curaçao as a financial safe harbor, namely the safeguarding functions that the Kingdom has to offer. Ys: “The same government that undermines these safeguarding functions, is most certainly propagandizing this in their recent expression ‘from red-tape to red-carpet’ for investors,” says the Cifa-chairman. A peculiar impression of things, he adds.

7 December 2011