Government left 2,616 questions unanswered during 2025-26 parliamentary year

ORANJESTAD — Aruba’s Parliament submitted thousands of questions to the Government during the 2025-2026 parliamentary year, but more than half of them were still unanswered when the period ended.

According to Parliament’s official overview, members of Parliament submitted 4,595 written questions. The Government answered 1,979, while 2,616 remained unanswered. This represents approximately 57% of all questions submitted.

The figures put Parliament’s oversight role in the spotlight. A parliamentary question can concern public spending, health care, justice, infrastructure, education or any other area of government. When no answer is provided, parliamentary scrutiny remains incomplete.

The MP with the highest number of unanswered questions was Edgard Vrolijk, with 516. Evelyn Wever-Croes had 495 unanswered questions, Rocco Tjon 377, Hendrik Tevreden 211 and Dangui Oduber 164. All are members of the MEP party.

There were also cases in which none of an MP’s questions received an answer. Muzaninn Tromp is listed as having submitted 221 questions, with all 221 remaining unanswered. Carlos Bermudez submitted 76 questions, and all 76 remained unanswered.

The document contains an internal discrepancy worth noting. The table listing questions by MP records 4,595 questions, 1,979 answered and 2,616 unanswered, while the following table, which breaks the questions down by ministry, gives a different total of 4,596 questions, 1,810 answered and 2,614 unanswered.

Regardless of this administrative discrepancy, both tables point to the same issue: thousands of parliamentary questions went unanswered.

As Parliament begins a new parliamentary year, the challenge is not only for MPs to ask questions, but also for the Government to answer them in a timely manner.