INVESTIGATIONS | Government itself recognizes need for reform, but crucial part has yet to begin. Part 3

ORANJESTAD – While citizens feel the problems in public services at the counter, on the phone or while waiting for an answer, behind the scenes the Government has already been working for years on a project to reorganize its own apparatus.

The existence of this reform is no secret. It is officially documented in the Landspakket between Aruba and the Netherlands.

But Investiga reviewed the latest implementation report and found an important detail: several fundamental changes that are supposed to make Government more efficient were still delayed or had not yet started at the time of the report.

The documents provide a much more concrete picture of where the problem lies.

GOVERNMENT ACKNOWLEDGES THAT ITS APPARATUS NEEDS REORGANIZATION

In the Landspakket, Aruba and the Netherlands defined the goal of creating a public sector with greater quality, effectiveness and efficiency. The measures include reorganization of the government apparatus, automation, more efficient processes, modernization of HR and restructuring of the Government’s ICT function.

That is significant.

It means that the need to make Government more efficient is not merely the opinion of citizens, the opposition or the press. It is part of Government’s own official reform program.

The report also acknowledges that after the December 2024 election and the installation of a new Government in March 2025, the original planning for several reforms fell behind schedule. The document states that the transition meant work could only continue in a largely “policy-light” manner for a period, causing several implementation timelines to be delayed.

REORGANIZATION: DECISION DELAYED, IMPLEMENTATION NOT STARTED

One of the most important projects is the reorganization of the government apparatus itself.

The aim is to reorganize parts of Government to achieve more automation, greater process efficiency and more effective use of personnel.

But the official report shows that administrative decision-making caused delays in the reorganization plan. The implementation phase that was supposed to follow was still marked as “not yet started.”

The same situation appears in the reorganization of Government’s ICT function: planning was affected by administrative decision-making, and implementation had not yet begun at the time of the report.

This is a crucial point, because many of the problems citizens experience — departments that do not communicate with one another, processes that depend on several different offices, lack of automation and repetitive administrative steps — are precisely the kinds of problems this reorganization is meant to address.

But the remedy itself is delayed.

EVEN PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT IS STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT

Government also plans to expand a digital dashboard intended to measure quality, effectiveness and implementation capacity within the public sector.

The latest report shows that the KPIs — indicators used to measure performance — had been prepared, but expansion of the dashboard was still marked as not started, with implementation scheduled for later in 2026.

That raises a fundamental question:

How can Government know exactly which department is functioning well and which is not, if the system for measuring performance is itself still being completed?

ANOTHER SIGNAL: DEPARTMENT WITHOUT ITS OWN ICT EXPERT

An official Government announcement from July 2026 offers another view of internal capacity.

The Directorate of Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry (DEZHI) published a tender for “fully managed ICT services.” In the document, Government itself explains the reason: DEZHI does not have an ICT employee or ICT expert on staff and therefore wants to contract an external provider to guarantee continuity, security and availability of its digital environment.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with outsourcing ICT.

But in the context of a Government that is simultaneously trying to modernize and digitalize its apparatus, the information shows how limited internal capacity can be in certain agencies.

At the end of July, Government also published another tender for a Program Manager who, over 18 months, must help design and implement a CIO Office and Shared Service Organisation ICT for the entire Country of Aruba between 2026 and 2028.

In other words: the institutional infrastructure needed to centralize and professionalize government ICT is itself still being created.

THE PROBLEM GOES DEEPER THAN ONE DEPARTMENT

Put all the pieces together: Censo, DTI and DIMAS, to name a few, acknowledge that demand exceeds capacity. The Ombudsman records lack of response as the dominant complaint. Reform of the government apparatus has been delayed. Implementation of parts of the reorganization has not yet started. Government is still building its central structure for ICT and performance management.

That is not proof that “Government is doing nothing.”

On the contrary, the documents show that Government is working on reform.

But they also show something else: Aruba’s government apparatus is in a transition that is still incomplete, while citizens and businesses must continue relying every day on the same apparatus that is being reformed.

That may explain part of the contradiction that Investiga started with.

At the political level, there are projects, announcements and initiatives.

But at the operational level, several of the systems that are supposed to deliver results are still being restructured.

The question for Government, therefore, is not only: “What are you doing?”

The more important question is: “When will citizens actually begin to feel the reform in the service they receive?”

Because ultimately, a government reorganization is not successful when the plan is approved.

It is successful when the citizen on the other side of the counter notices the difference.