“Nothing new. Nothing we don’t already know. These people went to WEB, and WEB’s own technicians told them what the problem is so they can put it in a report and charge them for it. What is this? The same thing is now happening with Elmar. The chief technician told them where the fault lies for them to put in the report. It’s very easy money. But where is the solution?” employees exclaimed during the investigation in both ELMAR and WEB at the end of the week. Internal signals are not positive about the American company that the Wever-Croes Cabinet brought in to investigate why electricity is constantly going out in Aruba.
It can be recalled that last year already, WEB Aruba N.V. received a visit from the American company, MPR, experts in the engineering field, with the goal to help with some challenges the company was facing. WEB Aruba N.V. is always open to seeking solutions. But nothing that the Americans brought to the table is new or something that the local engineers were not capable of.
It’s strange that many engineers, despite everyone knowing exactly what the problem is, choose to bury their heads in the sand. The problem has a name: Political Interference. The government is directly involved in the operations of WEB and is forcing dividends to be paid instead of investing in preventative maintenance.
The same is happening in ELMAR, which has gone several years without investment and is now facing the repercussions. They put someone with no engineering knowledge at the head of a power distribution company and now question why the company has problems, without being able to solve them. And ironically, ELMAR is agreeing for an American engineering company to come to Aruba, sit with the Aruban technical director, ask him what he thinks the problem is, put it on paper, and charge them for their “findings” and a list of recommendations. “This is unheard of and is a slap in the face to our employees,” the local engineers expressed angrily about this way of working.
If you check NV ELMAR’s website, you can see that their latest annual report is from 2022, so they are not complying with good governance and transparency laws at all. Within six months after the year ends, they should publish their annual accounts. WEB has theirs up to 2021, so they are even worse off. ELMAR reported having over 80 million florins in revenue and over 63 million in expenses. They reported a profit of 12 million florins two years ago, which is three million more than in 2021. It is from this 12 million that they send money to Utilities to cover their expenses, and the rest goes to the government. Ironically, Utilities Aruba NV does not have their annual accounts public on their website. On the other hand, WEB reported a profit of 8 million in 2021.
According to ELMAR’s management before the Wever-Croes Cabinet, they normally invest 20 million florins per year in maintenance. Obviously, this management changed, and they opted to send the money as dividends instead of renewing the grid and the old high-voltage cables. One idea would be to place the cables underground to prevent accidents involving helium balloons or animals chewing on the cables, but that is a larger investment than the company can afford.
