1.
Curaçao must ratify the United Nations Conventions Against Corruption as a matter of urgency and develop an action plan to ensure implementation and compliance.
2.
All sectors of society must strive to increase the levels of transparency in their activities, internal procedures and funding sources. Given the pivotal role played by political parties in the Curaçao NIS, the transparency of political party financing requires particular attention.
3.
The Government should prioritise funding and capacity building of law enforcement agencies to enable them to effectively conduct investigations and follow-up on cases put forward by Curaçao’s active watchdog and oversight agencies.
4.
Given the central role of the public sector in Curaçao’s NIS, the Government must work to ensure greater independence and accountability of the public sector, ensuring that principles of proper administration are adhered to, that all internal mechanisms to ensure accountability and integrity are in place, and that compliance with these mechanisms is monitored and sanctions imposed where necessary.
More challenging perhaps, but equally important is to work on strengthening the foundations of the new country, in particular, trust. As mentioned in the chapter on Curaçao’s foundations, the level of interpersonal trust in Curaçao is not high. This is a major obstacle for any effective programme to address corruption and promote good governance. There is a general lack of trust in Curaçao’s institutions and in the people who are running them. Many people are not in a good position to challenge misconduct of those in power, and accountability mechanisms in place are not sufficiently supported. Curaçao is also not especially strong in educating the next generation on good governance and anti-corruption. Instead, because of a lack of trust, investment in the many talented young people in Curaçao is too low, which lays the ground for weaknesses of the Curaçao National Integrity System of tomorrow. To increase the level of formal trust means to ensure proper procedures, to engrain integrity into the country’s institutions, to ensure adequate accountability provisions including whistleblowing provisions, and to increase transparency, including transparency on procedures followed, across the board. Some advances in the Curaçao National Integrity System of 2013 will need some time, but others can be realised today. The recommendations presented below for each pillar focus on the key areas of weakness identified in the integrity system of Curaçao. Other suggestions for improvement may be found in the assessments of the different pillars in Chapter VI, as well as in the Appendix to this report which contains some more general examples of concrete actions to improve a National Integrity System.
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Government and Parliament must ensure that all legislation, including all country and ministerial decrees, is published on the internet within clear and reasonable time limits and with clear sanctions for non-compliance.
NATIONAL INTEGRITY SYSTEM ASSESSMENT CURAÇAO