There was a lot in the media this week about the excessive number of coordinators who worked for the former MinPres in the previous government who were officially let go.
Remember, they stopped working on the fatal night of Sept 22nd, election night, when the MinPres decided on his own to forfeit the election results, in spite of the fact that he won 39.86% of the vote, which would have given him the right, with 23,376 votes, to remain head of state; but because his party lost 4 parliamentary seats he decided to head to the opposition benches.
This week the people working for the previous government on TEMPORARY employment agreements, got their walking papers. It’s the beginning of January, and they were finally officially dismissed. Keep in mind that they have NOT been working since September, that’s FOUR salaried months, AND they all knew when they got into it, that job security is relative to their employer’s ability to stay in power, but the former MinPres, as well as the former MinJust, still found it necessary to shed public crocodile tears about ‘mother and fathers’ ushered out into the snow coatless and shoeless, by an unsympathetic government. They delivered addresses and interviews laced with great pathos and drama.
(If indeed, and you really cared about employing your people long-term, you should have stayed in government, you shouldn’t have spent the reported Awg 141.811,20 on your birthday party and left the country with a 131-million-florin hole in the budget. But that’s water under the now-banged-up bridge.)
It has always been self-understood that the coordinators gotta go. Stop talking about it. Those permanently employed and borrowed from other government departments will be absorbed elsewhere, and the temporary forces will have to update their resumes, get haircuts, and go job hunting. There is opportunity out there.
The election results clearly indicated that the people of the island empowered the current government to reduce its overhead, mostly payroll, which is reportedly twice the size of Curacao’s government apparatus, with a similar number of island residents.
Please stop talking start doing.
HOWEVER, if our new government intends to fill all these positions now vacant with locals of another political color, then the in-and-out maneuver becomes an exercise in futility. Hopefully not. If the cleaning lady at the MFA in Paradera does a good job, she should be allowed to stay, even if a green lining is suspected.
But I have good news
A billboard in Noord publicizing the number of traffic casualties in 2017 indicates we just had two during the past 12 months, which is a considerable improvement over last year.
True, every casualty is one too many, but traffic seems to be safer on the island. I called the Police spokesperson who took most of the credit. He reported to me that the frequent police checks must have contributed positively. He also opined that the improved roads, and the changes made at deadly intersections, added to traffic safety.
Sure the redesign of bad roads and dangerous intersection helps, but for the coming year remember improved signs, and better light, better pedestrian crossings with warning lights and the elimination of taxi stops mid road — they should have designated, well-defined areas.
I asked the spokesperson if we managed to minimize drinking and driving. We’re working on it, he said. And the recent don’t-text-and-drive regulation was helpful too!
At a recent holiday party, some of my friends decided to drink and use taxis coming and going. The beginning of the evening proved easy, they climbed into a taxicab and arrived at the party’s headquarters ready to rumba. But as the event wrapped up BEFORE midnight, it took them 90 minutes to get a cab. The dispatcher announced that the driver could not find the address – Waze? Arubook? – and that all drivers went home. Sort of counter-productive!
Shall we continue to drink and drive if taxi cabs are unavailable??
