In the wake of the general unrest

My friends dealing with the Aruba Ports Authority Directie Scheepvaart and Aruba Stevedoring Company, ASTEC N.V. reported that recently out of protest over the smoke emanating from WEB’s chimneys the stevedores supposed to be off loading incoming ships take the morning off, and only work in the afternoon, for a few hours, resulting in a number of costly scenarios.

Captains who are unable to off-load decide to pull out and go to Curacao first.

Chilled containers which must be stored additional hours, accumulate extra cost, because they cannot be cleared in the morning hours.

WEB has been there for decades, but apparently, now, in the wake of the general unrest, the stevedores are protesting, smoke gets in their eyes, and they make their complaints sound in the pockets of the local business community.

On another note, Customs Agents are back at work, but we don’t know for how long, depending on the results of an upcoming meeting with GOA.

Recently I was told about a new regulation-from-bureaucratic-hell: If you personally carry a spare part or a piece of equipment for your business on a plane to Aruba and wish to clear it upon arrival with customs at the airport, lubid, no por. You have to hire a broker to fill in forms for you. Make sure you give him a KVK document, a copy of your passport, the copy of your airline ticket, and merchandise receipts, two copies each, then he can fill in the paperwork and YOU personally get to take another trip to the airport to clear the junk.

It will encourage people to bring in things as personal use items, in lieu of business, because items for personal use may clear customs upon arrival.   

A twenty-minute rant: The Kettle calling the Pot Black

I never thought I would feel the urge to ever listen to the former-MinInfra again. But Thursday he gave an extraordinary and urgent press conference where for twenty minutes he outlined the sins of the current MinInfra, and his manipulative and corrupt modus operandi in so called privatizing government entities with independent sources of income he can access in his role as Lider Maximo.

We all witnessed the former MinInfra throw his mentor, the current MinInfra, under the bus with very specific accusations, in the millions. Sadly, I believe that everything reported is true, because both politicians sat together in GOA for at least 8 years, and BS was able to pick up a lot of his own wicked ways from OO, a master *Machiavellian politician. BS now recognizes a trick, when he sees one.

*Cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics or in advancing one’s career.

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July 06, 2018
Rona Coster