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local Wednesday 18 January 2023

Parliament unanimously approves TPEF 2023 budget

ORANJESTAD – Monday around the coast of Aruba.
morning a meeting took TPEF is a fund created with It will also finance the study
place to discuss the bud- the purpose of investing that need to be carried
get for the Tourism Product in projects that contribute out for the project of Bubali
Enhancement Fund (TPEF) to the enhancement of Wetlands, which is a joint
2023 in Parliament. Minister Aruba’s touristic product. project between the Minis-
of Tourism, Mr. Dangui Odu- The portfolio in which TPEF try of Environment and the
ber brought forward issues invests consists of projects Aruba National Park Foun-
that are important to fortify falling into six categories. dation (FPNA).
our main economic pillar. These are: Attraction, Secu- In FPNA’s plan there is also
rity, Environment, Heritage, a Visitor Information Center
The minister thanked Parlia- Awareness and Investment. (VIC) which will also serve
ment for unanimously ap- Parliament approved the as an information cen-
proving the budget, which 2023 budget which is be- ter for the new park that
he said in a press release is tween 2.9 and 3.3 million need to be built. The idea
a show that the opposition Florins that Aruba receives is for the VIC to also serve
parties in Parliament agree through the Room Tax and as a museum for Aruba’s
with the work done by the will be distributed between nature. Minister Oduber in-
current Minister of Tourism. the different categories. dicated that this project is
Both fractions in the coali- expensive and cannot be Aruba and is extremely and voting in favor of the
tion as in opposition sup- Minister Oduber mentioned financed solely by TPEF. satisfied with this important TPEF budget 2023, which
port the budget. “This is that in 2023 regarding the development. He thanked he said is certainly proof of
certainly an important step environment, TPEF is go- Minister Oduber said he the fractions in Parliament confidence in Parliament
for the tourism develop- ing to finance 100 waste is confident that the TPEF of MEP, Raiz, MAS, Accion for his policy.q
ment of Aruba.” bins that will be placed all will enhance our product 21 and AVP for supporting

Commission gathering information in Aruba for National Slavery

Museum in Amsterdam

ORANJESTAD – Prime min- Aruba has been prepar-
ister of Aruba, Mrs. Evelyn ing. Slavery in Aruba is not
Wever-Croes met with the a well-known topic, thus a
commission appointed by very important point is to
the township of Amsterdam provide information and
to introduce a National awareness regarding the
Slavery Museum. Mr. John history of slavery in Aruba
Leerdam is part of the com- so that our people and all
mission as quartermaster those visiting our island can
and in relation to the intro- be aware of it. By know-
duction of this national mu- ing about the past we can
seum in Amsterdam, is vis- have a better influence on
iting the Caribbean islands our future, the Prime Minis-
belonging to the Kingdom ter expressed.
of the Netherlands as well
as Suriname to meet peo- Concluding, Wever-Croes
ple in these countries who said that members of the
are working on the subject commission were satisfied
of slavery in order to be in with the information re-
contact with them and re- Culture and thus could not delivered to every citizen ery. ceived in Aruba and that
ceive more information. be present at the meet- of Amsterdam, which con- there will be more meet-
ing with Wever-Croes and tains a lot of information In Aruba there is a commis- ings to continue giving
Minister of Culture, Xio- Leerdam. regarding slavery. This is in sion instituted under Minis- more information, because
mara Maduro is currently in During the meeting, the relation of the apologies ter Maduro which is work- the National Museum must
Curaçao to take part in a Prime Minister received a offered by the township for ing on this topic. By the 1st reflect the point of view of
meeting with the Kingdom book created by the town- the role that Amsterdam of July of this year, the idea what Aruba lived during
ministers of Education and ship of Amsterdam and played in the history of slav- is to present the plan which the period of slavery.q