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a7
local Wednesday 29 March 2023

Prime Minister Evelyn Wever-Croes: “Our coalition is stronger than ever”

(Oranjestad)—Recently, finalize this agreement. be effective immediately. The prime minister ex- stalled in the down town
Prime Minister Evelyn Wev- Therefore—as you can plained that it is already area, but the APA has now
er-Croes, along with Min- The prime minister further see—this agreement really public knowledge that Ea- asked for a tank station at
ister Dangui Oduber for explained that besides this, concerns different areas of gle LNG is currently build- the cruise ship dock (as it is
Tourism and Health, visited they would also like to ex- general importance, which ing a bunker station in San common practice in other
Jacksonville, Florida, to plore the possibility to use all falls under my ministry,” Nicolas and that the pro- countries) so they can offer
meet with executives from liquefied natural gas (LNG) the prime minister clarified. cess is going well. Accord- LNG services for the ships.
Jaxport to sign a Memoran- at the Aruba docks to pro- ing to her, the company is Many cruise ships have
dum of Understanding for a vide cruise ships LNG when In relation to her ministry— also communicating with switched to LNG and it is for
new cargo route between they dock on the island. formed by a coalition be- the inhabitants of that dis- this reason why APA is inter-
Aruba and the U.S. This matter is also included tween the MEP and RAIZ trict. est in a tank station. APA is
in the finance manage- parties—our reporter asked already having discussions
In relation to this, our report- ment by Minister Oduber, the leader if there is a divi- She clarified that there will about this project. q
ed approached the prime who was also present at sion amongst the members be no LNG pipelines in-
minister with a few ques- the meeting. For this goal, of the coalition, to which
tions about this MoU. Firstly, Eagle LNG also signed the she assured that this is not
our reporter asked if there MoU agreement. the case. “Our coalition is
are any reasons as to why stronger than ever. I’ll re-
the ministers in charge of She added that they will fer to one small example:
the finances for the econ- continue to explore options Minister Arends (RAIZ) and
omy and transportation to open more routes for I both attended the UN
were not present during this cargo and cruise ships for Water Conference in New
meeting in Jacksonville. Aruba. This will again all be York last week to represent
managed by Minister Dan- Aruba.”
The prime minister indi- gui Oduber.
cated that she had signed In terms of the LNG services
the MoU with Jaxport on “If we can finalize the for cruise ships, our reporter
Monday to explore the agreement, this can pro- asked the prime minister if
possibility of collaboration vide general benefits for this also includes the San
between Aruba and the our tourism (Minister Odu- Nicolas dock where the
U.S., and seeing how the ber), energy sector (Min- fuel pipeline is located,
MoU concerns the general ister G. Croes), economy seeing as there has never
development of the island, (Minister Wever), transpor- been a mention of LNG in
as the prime minister, she tation (Minister Arends) the down town area, which
thought signing the MoU and finally, for the island’s would indicate a pipeline
would be a no-brainer. general finances (Minister running all the way to the
Maduro). This trajectory will down town area.
She remarked that this
MoU concerns the finances
managed by Minister Dan-
gui Oduber as well as APA.
The latter is currently work-
ing with Jaxport so that the
government agency can
help APA with the termi-
nals. This, Minister Oduber
had previously arranged
with Jaxport already, and
Monday’s meeting was to