December 21st, 2016  
  
  
Procurement Statistics for          
July-December 2014 in Aruba   
Report  
2016 
The Kingdom of the Netherlands for Aruba has formalized the 
Government Procurement Agreement (GPA/113), on July 4th 2014, as 
a member of the World Trade Organization  (WTO)  
 
1 
  
PROCUREMENT STATISTI CS FOR THE NETHERLAN DS WITH RESPECT TO A RUBA  
TABLE OF  CONTENTS  
INTRODUCTION  2 
REPORTING ENTITIES  2 
DATA COLLECTION  3 
Sources  3 
Criteria  4 
CPC CLASSIFICATION  4 
CURRENCY  5 
Special Drawing Right (SDR)  5 
Aruban Florin  5 
CONTENTS OF THE REPO RT 5 
All contracts covered by the Agreement  6 
Contracts covered by the Agreement under limited Tendering  7 
Listing of contracts broken down by category goods and services according to CPC code  8 
CONCLUSION  9 
  2 
 Introduction  
The World Trade Organization  Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA)  is the pre -eminent 
international instrument regulating the conduct of international trade in governme nt procurement 
markets. It aims to ensure fair, transparent and non -discriminatory conditions of competition for 
purchases of goods, services and construction services by the public entities covered by the 
Agreement . It also serves the broader purpose of p romoting good governance, the efficient and 
effective management of public resources, and the attainment of best value for money in national 
procurement systems.  The fundamental aim of the GPA is to mutually open government 
procurement markets among its pa rties1.  
Aruba as part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is bound to the Government Procurement 
Agreement as of July 4th of 2014. In compliance with the Government Procurement Agreement, each 
Party shall collect and report to the Committee statistics on it s contracts covered by the Agreement.  
The Agreement further specifies that the report shall be submitted within two years of the end of 
the reporting period. This is the first report for Aruba, which covers the period from July 2014 to 
December 2014.  
Repo rting Entities  
As set out in the Government Procurement Agreement, Aruba is to report  statistics on all its 
contracts covered by the Agreement. Annex 1 of the Agreement contains a list of Central 
Government Entities  in Aruba  of which all procurement s should be reported.  Apart from the listed 
government entities, there are no other entities that are covered by the Agreement. The following 
sixteen entities are covered by the Agreement.  
List of Entities : 
1. Ministry of General Affairs2 
2. Ministry of Justice a nd Education  
3. Ministry of Finance, Communication , Utilities and Energy3 
4. Ministry of Health and Sport  
5. Ministry of Integration, Infrastructure and Environment  
6. Ministry of Economic Affairs, Social Affairs and Culture  
7. Ministry of Tourism, Transportation and Lab our 
8. Parliament of Aruba  
9. Raad van Advies (Council of Advisers)  
10. Algemene Rekenkamer Aruba (Court of Auditors Aruba)  
11. Dienst Openbare Werken (Department of Public Works)  
12. Serlimar (Environmental Agency)  
13. Sociale Verzekeringsbank (Social Insurance Bank)  
14. Algemene Ziektekosten Vereniging (General Health Insurance Association)  
15. Instituto Medico San Nicolas (Medical Institute)  
16. Wegen Infrastructuur Fonds (Infrastructure Fund)  
                                                           
1 Source: https://e -gpa.wto.org/en/GPAInBrief  
2 For the Ministry of General Affairs, this Agreement does not cover procurement by its subordinate unit Veiligheidsdienst Arub a. 
3 For the Ministry of Finance, Communication, Utilities and Energy, this Agreement does not cover the procurement by its subord inate 
unit Meldpunt Ongebruikelijke Transacties.  3 
 Data collection  
The Central Bureau of Statistics is responsible for publishing the statistics on all government 
procurements covered by the Agreement.  To acquire the necessary data for this report, different 
entities were approached to request them to provide information regarding procurements.  
Sources  
Entities 1 to 10  
To gather the necessary info rmation, the Central Bureau of Statistics approached the Ministry of 
Finance and subsequently its Department of Finance to obtain information about awarded contracts 
within  the report period. When a government entity awards a contract through tendering , a request 
is made to t he Department of Finance to make the funds available in the amount for which the 
contract was awarded. The Department of Finance registers these requests and other information 
related to the contracts  for the entities 1 through 1 0 in th e above mentioned list. Thus, this 
department forms a central point from where information regarding government procurements is 
collected .  
Entities 11 to 16  
The remaining entities , 11 through  16 on the abovementioned list, were approached separately  for 
information regarding their procurements , as information regarding procurements by these entities 
is not registered by the Department of Finance.  Entities 11 through 16 all informed the Central 
Bureau of Statistics that no procurements had been issued in t he period from July to December 
2014.  
Note  
The Government Procurement Agreement specifies  in its Annexes to Appendi x 1 all entities that are 
covered by the Agreement. Annex 1 contains a list of the central government entities whose 
procurement is covered by this Agreement.  In Aruba, local government projects can be funded by 
the Fondo Desaroyo Aruba (FDA). The FDA is a development fund to which Aruba and The 
Netherlands contributed in the period from 2009 to 2015. The fund is managed independently by a 
foundation consisting of a board of three members. The board decides how the funds are distributed 
and is also responsible for the control, implementation as well as the administrative procedures of 
projects. The FDA finances local government projects which contribute to the improvement of the 
quality of governance, education, sustainable economic development and public health4. 
Information from entities that receive funding from t he Fondo Desaroyo Aruba is not yet listed in 
this report , since  such information pertaining to FDA funding has not yet  been  received .  
Since this is the first  year of  publication of the procurement statistics for Aruba it was a challenge to 
obtain  information on g overnment procurements from the previously listed entities. Information on 
procurement s is not readily available , nor available in the requested format . Producing the 
information necessary for the statistics was thus a time consuming task for the Department of 
Finance as well as  for the oth er entities that were appr oached.  Currently all stakeholders  are aware 
and are  involved in the process of  generating adequate  information for future government 
procurement statistics  and are making arrangements to organize procedures to  implement  the 
required information  in the dep artment workflow for years to come. For the next year, in 2015, the 
process is expected to be complete and the required information will be readily available, 
guar anteeing a complete report for in the future.  
                                                           
4 http://www.overheid.aw/document.php?m=5&fileid=10004&f=7d042e9b1838439327cbe7ef198365d7&attachment=0&c=14308  
 4 
 Criteria  
For the  determin ation of which procur ement s were to be incorporated in this year’s report  two 
criteria  were relevant . Firstly,  whether the date the contracts were awarded were in the period from 
July 2014 to December 2014 and secondly  whether  the amount for which the contract was awarded 
was above the thresholds as indicated in Annex 1 of the Agreement (see below).   
In consultation with The Department of Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry of Aruba and the 
Department of Finance it was decided that the date  to take in account is defined as the date on 
which the contract was awarded  and is considered as the date which will determine in what year the 
contract shall be reported.   
Threshold  
In Annex 1 of the Agreement the thresholds for the Central Government Entities are specified as 
follows.  
Supplies5 
Threshold   SDR 100,000  
Services6 
Threshold   SDR 100,000  
Construction Services7 
Threshold   SDR 4,000,000  
 
CPC Classification  
Article 16 of th e Agreement requires procurements to be reported by categories of goods and  
services according to an internationally recognized uniform classification  system .  The United 
Nations Central Product Classification (CPC)  is a product classification for goods an d services. It is an 
international standard for organizing and analyzing data on industrial production, national accounts, 
trade, and prices.  The Central Bureau of Statistics  also uses the CPC in its trade statistics and in its 
system of national accounts.  The CPC  used in this report is in agreement with that used by the 
Central Bureau of Statistics. The version of the Central Product Classification (CPC)  used in this report 
is the 2.0  version8, which will be used to categorize all reported procurements. Based on the 
description of the contracts awarded through procurement, the contracts were  categorize d 
according to the CP C classification.  
  
                                                           
5 The Agreement covers procurement of all goods procured by the entities listed in Annex 1.  
6 The Ag reement covers the following services, which are identified in accordance with the United Nations Provisional Central Product  
Classification (CPC) as contained in document MTN.GNS/W/120. See Annex 5 of the Agreement for the complete list of services c overe d by 
the Agreement.  
7 Construction Services and related engineering services as defined in the CPC division code 51.  
8 http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/cpc -2.asp  5 
 Currency  
Special Drawing Right (SDR ) 
The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to sup plement its member 
countries’ official reserves. The currency value of the SDR is defined as a basket of major currencies 
(the U.S. dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling and the Chinese renminbi). The SDR currency 
value, in terms of US dollar, is calc ulated daily and the valuation basket is reviewed and adjusted 
every five years.  
Aruban Florin  
The national currency of Aruba is the Aruban Florin. The International Standards Organization (ISO) 
uses the abbreviation 'AWG' as the currency code for Aruba. H owever, Aruban law uses the 
abbreviation 'Afl.' for the Aruban florin. The Central Bank of Aruba uses 'AWG' for all transactions 
with other parties, while the code 'Afl.' is used in its official publications9. The Aruban florin is 
pegged to the US Dollar a t an average exchange rate of $1 = Afl. 1,79.  
In the period from July 2014 to December 2014, the SDR rate to the US dollar was at its highest on 
July 1st when 1 SDR was equal to $ 1,5483710, which was Afl. 2,7704 . The SDR rate was at its lowest 
during the ab ovementioned period on December 31st, when 1 SDR was equal to $ 1,44881 , which 
was A fl.2,5651 . The exchange rates mentioned here serve as an indication of the SDR rate in relation 
to the Aruban Florin.  
All amounts presented in this report are in SDR, as ca lculated on the date when the contract was 
awarded.  All contracts covered by this Agreement were awarded in Aruban Florins, and for this 
report were exchanged to US Dollars at the average exchange rate of Afl. 1,79, and then converted 
to SDR according to the rate on th e date of the awarded contract.  
Contents of the Report  
In article XVI of the Agreement on the transparency of procurement information, the following is 
stated about the collection and reporting of statistics. “Each Party shall collect and report to the 
Committee statistics on its contracts covered by this  Agreement and sha ll contain for Annex 1 
procuring entities:  
 
1.  the number and total value, for all such entities, of all contracts covered by  this Agreement;  
2.  the number and total value of all contracts covered by this Agreement  awarded by each 
such entity, broken down by categories of goods and  services according to an internationally 
recognized uniform classification  system;  and  
3. the number and total value o f all contracts covered by this Agreement awarded by each such 
entity under limited tendering; ” 
 
In the following tables, the procurement information pertaining to the Netherlands with respect to 
Aruba is presented.  
  
                                                           
9 Source: http://www.cbaruba.org/cba/getGlossary.do  
10 https://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/data/rms_sdrv.aspx  6 
 All contracts covered by the Agreemen t     
Entities  Total Number of 
Contracts  Total Value in SDR  
Ministry of General Affairs  0 0 
Ministry of Justice and Education  3 598,809.37  
Ministry of Finance, Communication, Utilities and Energy  1 385,254.98  
Ministry of Health and Sport  2 281,242.17  
Ministry of Integration, Infrastructure and Environment  0 0 
Ministry of Economic Affairs, Social Affairs and Culture  0 0 
Ministry of Tourism, Transportation and Labour  0 0 
Parliament of Aruba  0 0 
Raad van Advies (Council of Advisers)  0 0 
Algemene Rekenkamer Aruba (Court of Auditors Aruba)  0 0 
Dienst Openbare Werken (Department of Public Works)  1 143,556.65  
Serlimar (Environmental Agency)  0 0 
Sociale Verzekeringsbank (Social Insurance Bank)  0 0 
Algemene Ziektekosten Vereniging  (General Health Insurance Association)  0 0 
Instituto Medico San Nicolas (Medical Institute)  0 0 
Wegen Infrastructuur Fonds (Infrastructure Fund)  0 0 
Total  7 1,408,863.18  
*Excluding information from FDA  
In the period from July 2014 to December  2014 a total number of s even contracts can be reported, 
exceeding the specified threshold. These seven contracts were awarded by four procuring entities 
for a total of SDR 1,408,863.18 . 
  7 
 Contracts covered by the Agreement under limited Tendering    
Entit ies Total Number of 
Contracts  Total Value in SDR  
Ministry of General Affairs  0 0 
Ministry of Justice and Education  1 121,118.23  
Ministry of Finance, Communication, Utilities and Energy  0 0 
Ministry of Health and Sport  1 118,326.41  
Ministry of Integration, Infrastructure and Environment  0 0 
Ministry of Economic Affairs, Social Affairs and Culture  0 0 
Ministry of Tourism, Transportation and Labour  0 0 
Parliament of Aruba  0 0 
Raad van Advies (Council of Advisers)  0 0 
Algemene Rekenkamer  Aruba (Court of Auditors Aruba)  0 0 
Dienst Openbare Werken (Department of Public Works)  0 0 
Serlimar (Environmental Agency)  0 0 
Sociale Verzekeringsbank (Social Insurance Bank)  0 0 
Algemene Ziektekosten Vereniging  (General Health Insurance 
Association)  0 0 
Instituto Medico San Nicolas (Medical Institute)  0 0 
Wegen Infrastructuur Fonds (Infrastructure Fund)  0 0 
    0 
Total  2 239,444.64  
*Excluding information from FDA  
In the reported period a total of two contra cts were awarded through limited tendering. Limited 
tendering is defined as a procurement method whereby the procuring entity contacts a supplier or 
suppliers of its choice11. 
                                                           
11 Source: Page 8 of the Government Procurement Agreement  (GPA/113).  8 
 Listing of contracts broken down by category goods and services according to CPC  code 12       
Entity  Number of 
contracts  CPC Division  CPC group  CPC 2.0  Value in SDR  
Ministry of General Affairs  0 - - - 0 
Ministry of Justice and Education  2 Pulp, paper and paper products; 
printed matter and related 
articles  Books, brochures, leaflets 
printed, printed maps; music, 
printed or manusc ript 322 477,691.14  
  1 Special purpose machinery  Weapons and ammunition 
and parts thereof  447 121,118.23  
Ministry of Finance, Communication, Utilities and Energy  1 Other professional, scientific and 
technical services  Consulting and management 
services  831 385,254.98  
Ministry of Health and Sport  2 Medical appliances, precision and 
optical instruments  Medical appliances,  precision 
and optical instruments  48 u  281,242.17  
Ministry of Integration, Infrastructure and Environment  0 - - - 0 
Ministry of Economic Affairs, Social Affairs and Culture  0 - - - 0 
Ministry of Tourism, Transportation and Labour  0 - - - 0 
Parliament of Aruba  0 - - - 0 
Raad van Advies (Council of Advisers)  0 - - - 0 
Algemene Rekenkamer Aruba (Court of Auditors Aruba)  0 - - - 0 
Dienst Openbare Werken (Department of Public Works)  1 Fabricated metal products  Other fabricated metal 
products  429 143,556.65  
Serlimar (Environmental Agency)  0 - - - 0 
Sociale Verzekeringsbank (Social Insurance Bank)  0 - - - 0 
Algemene Ziektekosten Vereniging (General Health Insurance Association)  0 - - - 0 
Instituto Medico San Nicolas (Medical Institute)  0 - - - 0 
Wegen Infrastructuur Fonds (Infrastructure Fund)  0 - - - 0 
*Excluding information from FDA  
Of the total number of procurements, one contract was in the category ‘service’ while the remaining six contracts were in the category ‘goods’. The entity 
which awarded the most contracts above the threshold in the report period was the Ministry of Justice and Education, having a warded three contracts. 
                                                           
12 http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cr/registry/cpc -2.asp  9 
 Conclusion  
This is the first report for the Net herlands in respect to Aruba in compli ance with The World Trade 
Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA)  covering all government procurement s in the 
period from July 2014 to December 2014.  Obtaining the necessary information for producing the 
procurement statistics has proven to be a challenge because the information is not readily available at the 
entities covered in the Agreement. The request  to provide the information on government procurement s 
made all the entities aware of the current incomplete state of the administration an d the need to better 
document and register information on all contracts . Arrangements have been made to cooperate more 
closely with the  listed entities regarding the administration and procedures  that need to be followed to 
guarantee timely and reliable  data for future re ports.