It’s not just one, but several contractors offering construction work at the St. Regis hotel project in Palm Beach. Now that the project is progressing and nearing completion phase by phase, workers are being dismissed from their jobs as if nothing happened. Mass layoffs are now a reality, with the vast majority of the workers, many of them foreigners, not registered with the Department of Labor, nor with SVb, nor with AZV, and worse, not with the Tax Department (DIMP). Consequently, the contractors are employing illegal workers, collecting all social security taxes from them, but not paying the government its fair share.
This explains why Immigration Aruba has so many “tourists” arriving in Aruba via the airport, stating they’ll stay for a week on the island, only to never return. They instead stay behind and work for six months, receive cash wages under the table, and not pay any form of tax. It’s a way to circumvent our laws and the money owed to the government.
In this, the hotel itself is failing miserably in controlling the contractors involved in the project. It cannot be that anyone can become a contractor and pretend that their business is in order when they don’t comply with local laws. Even though some companies are owned and managed by foreigners, there are also purely local companies applying the same “shady” practices!
From the entity that ensures social security, namely the Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVb), we have learned that last year there was still some control at the worksite. The contractors at St. Regis received administrative fines of over 100,000 florins. This was because they encountered many workers who were not properly registered with the SVb. Obviously, these fines did not help at all, because today there are more illegal workers than ever at the project!
It must be clear to everyone that we all support economic development and labor progress, but not illegality or tax evasion. Because to set up a contractor, fill it with illegal workers, and make them work without securing them or paying taxes for them is a form of “human trafficking” for which there is criminal punishment.
At least one of the local contractors assured us that “This is how the system works. When we hire people, we tell them that when the job is done, they have to go. And we cannot register everyone with the SVb, etc. because there’s too much work and it makes the project costly and inefficient. We all work like this.” In this way, it can be seen that the modus operandi of the contractors is standard, circumventing our local laws. There are several construction projects underway at various new and existing hotels. It is worthwhile for the civil servants to come out from behind their desks in the air-conditioned offices and hit the streets to ensure that each worker is at least secure and compliant with local laws. Otherwise, high fines should be imposed, and the project should be halted until the main contractor can ensure that all permits are in order.
