Dorothy Pietersz-Janga
WILLEMSTAD--Curaçao Health, Environment and Nature GMN Minister Dorothy Pietersz-Janga of “Movementu Futuro Kòrsou” (MFK) submitted her resignation to Governor Lucille George-Wout on Wednesday afternoon at the coalition party’s request. Her position had become untenable after commotion over attempted interference in a healthcare fraud trial.
Last week, two former board members of the former Bureau for Sickness Cost Insurance BZV were sentenced to jointly pay four million Netherlands Antillean guilders in compensation for squandering taxpayers’ money between 2010 and 2012. In its ruling, the judge criticised Pietersz-Janga’s involvement in the case.
The minister had sent a letter to the relevant trustees in 2021 to prevent an appeal in the case. The three-judge panel considered this in breach of the separation of powers between government and the judiciary.
Following the verdict of the judges, the current MFK board informed her that she no longer enjoyed the party’s support. Finance Minister Javier Silvania of the same MFK has meanwhile officially been appointed as interim GMN-minister.
In her letter to the governor, Pietersz-Janga said she had been asked to step down by Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas, who is also MFK-leader. His request was supposedly based on a decision by the board, although it’s not clear to her if the latter was democratically taken within the party.
The letter also mentioned that if this were to come to a no-confidence motion vote in Parliament it could cause a split in MFK, which she did not consider in the country’s best intertest.
