The long-awaited 2023 budget amendment was finally submitted to Parliament by Finance Minister Ardwell Irion (see related story), almost 11 months after the year started. To be fair, much of the delay was due to still-ongoing developments with an impact on the end result.
Increased earnings by 23 million Netherlands Antillean guilders covered the rise in cost of NAf. 22 million. A significant part of the latter is for owed retroactive and future payments to law enforcement personnel, over which Justice Minister Anna Richardson expressed her delight in this edition.
Adopting the amendment at first sight seems like a no-brainer and therefore likely to receive broad legislative support, but it’s also campaign season for the January 11 election and surprises cannot be excluded. Keep in mind that the present coalition backing the Jacobs II Cabinet has only a minimal majority with eight of the 15 seats.
Nevertheless, swift approval can arguably be considered in the best general interest, among other reasons so pending capital investments can still take place. That’s all the more the case when taking into account potential consequences of Wednesday’s Dutch Second Chamber of Parliament election for relations with and financing from the Netherlands.
This matter is simply too big to make it a political bone of contention.
