The now-viral audio recording of Finance Minister Javier Silvania and Tax Receiver Alfonso de Jesús Trona has done more than expose an ugly argument between two powerful men with oversized egos. It has ripped open the curtain on a system that has quietly corroded the foundation of Curaçao’s public trust for years — a system where the rule of law bends at the will of influence, and where ordinary citizens face one kind of justice, while the privileged enjoy another.
At the center of this moral decay lies what insiders call “Trona’s drawer” — a metaphorical and literal place where tax files of Curaçao’s elite are stashed away, far from the standard procedures that govern everyone else. This drawer, referenced repeatedly in audits conducted by the government accountant SOAB, represents the epicenter of an entrenched culture of favoritism and backroom dealings inside the island’s tax apparatus.
According to SOAB’s findings, between 2018 and 2023, more than 5.3 million guilders were issued in advance payments to civil servants, senior officials, and former politicians without any legal basis. In many cases, no tax return had even been filed. Requests for deferrals, write-offs, or even refunds in advance of assessments were handled personally by Trona — often via phone calls or WhatsApp messages, completely outside of institutional oversight.
There were no written criteria. No supporting documents. No audits. Only Trona’s word. And for those fortunate enough to land in his drawer, the outcome was predictable: leniency, delays, or silence.
A System That Protects Itself
What is perhaps most alarming is not that this happened — corruption in small island states is, tragically, no novelty — but that nothing was done. The SOAB reports are public. Minister Silvania himself sent them to Parliament earlier this year. Yet, no one was prosecuted. Not Trona. Not the beneficiaries. Not the political figures who enabled the scheme.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office never moved to act. The Financial Supervision Board (Cft) flagged the irregularities to The Hague, but Dutch authorities responded with their usual mix of polite detachment and bureaucratic inertia. There were no investigations, no sanctions, no diplomatic pressure.
And that inaction speaks volumes. Because the names in that drawer, according to multiple insiders, belong to the island’s most powerful figures — people who can make or break political careers. In that sense, Trona’s infamous drawer has become his life insurance. He holds secrets that could destroy reputations and topple governments.
Silvania’s Dilemma
Silvania, meanwhile, has long positioned himself as the crusader against corruption within his own ministry. Yet his record tells a different story. The SOAB findings — damning, detailed, and well-documented — were not referred to law enforcement. Instead, they were quietly tabled, giving the appearance of transparency without the substance of accountability.
If the minister truly sought to clean house, he would have followed the trail where it led — even if it led into his own party. But like many before him, Silvania seems to understand that opening the drawer risks exposing far more than one corrupt official. It could reveal a network of complicity that reaches deep into the political, business, and bureaucratic elite.
A Mirror to a Nation
For years, Curaçaoans have spoken in whispers about corruption, favoritism, and the unwritten rule that connections matter more than compliance. Now, we have proof — in audio, and in audit reports. We know how it sounds. We know how it works.
What remains to be seen is whether anyone has the courage to confront it. Because to open that drawer now would not just be an act of justice — it would be an act of national self-reflection.
The Silvania–Trona affair is not about two men shouting in an office. It’s about a country held hostage by its own silence. It’s about the ordinary citizens who pay their taxes faithfully while watching others escape scrutiny. It’s about the erosion of faith in public institutions — the slow rot of a system that calls itself democratic but behaves like a private club.
And so the question hangs heavy: who will dare to look inside that drawer? And what will happen to those who try?
If Curaçao ever hopes to reclaim integrity in its governance, it must start by answering that question — honestly, publicly, and fearlessly.
Curaçao Chronicle Editorial Board
