My colleague and friend, investigative reporter and magazine published, facebook.com/xclusivo.aruba, penned her first backroom-politics post this week regarding integrity. I read her remarks with great interest and thought them worthy of publications.
She talked about the Old Boys club holding a few members of our community together, she quoted them by name: EDWIN TROMP (FCCA) – PRAKASH MUNGRA (CBA)- FRENDSEL GIEL (AIB_SOGA).
I checked Wikipedia for the Old Boys Club definition: An informal system by which money and power are retained by well to do men through incestuous business relationships.
Yup, the definition fits.
One of them, a highly-qualified, now retired former banker, has been the interim director of FCCA, since in 2017. The FCCA is a government mortgage bank designed to facilitate public housing, a very social minded and important financial institution which allows the more vulnerable members of our community to finance their first homes. The interim director was instated for six months, until a worthy new broom is identified. More than 50 applicants later, and the FCCA is still looking for the perfect match, rolling the interim appointment over, every six months, for a hefty salary, and still nothing, no one is good enough to fill those shoes.
That same highly-qualified, now retired former banker, is also on the board of the hospital. And we have already agreed a while ago that THAT board gotta go, in view of the terrible mismanagement of the hospital’s expansion/construction project. Two sensible members had already resigned, three are holding on, recruiting legal assistance, to help them retain their posts and keep their poor-choice-of-a-manager in the position of Director, forever.
Same highly-qualified, now retired former banker, is also on the board of the AIB, the Aruba Investment Bank, a private banking institution, owned by the island’s commercial banks, that caters to the other end of the spectrum, the fancy projects, among them the financing of the hospital, which must be investigated in view of the terrible mismanagement of the expansion/construction project.
All that soup, is supervised by the executives at the Central Banks who are supposed to see the connections, and recognize the cover-up-opportunities these relationships offer.
Moreover, a member of the FCCA supervisory Board, a well-respected retiree, who is married to the President of the Central Bank, is rumored to be assuming the position of the FCCA Co-Director, now that one director retired.
Is that kosher?
A husband supervised by his wife. At home, that’s perfectly ok, but on the job? It just doesn’t sound right, and I agree with Jacqueline Aruba, that we frequently hear from young educated Arubans that it is impossible to find a well-paying, top position on the island. Perhaps it is so hard, because the old guard refuses to let go, and make room for the next generation.
Anyway, the ball is in the MinFec’s court.
