Cabinet benefit scandal minutes show ministers were irritated by critical MPs
Wrongly-accused parents protesting in February. Photo: Phil Nijhuis ANP
Cabinet meeting minutes published on Monday evening in the latest twist to the childcare benefit cover-up show that several ministers were critical of MPs who wanted more information about the unfolding scandal.
Thousands of families were wrongly accused of trying to defraud the childcare benefits system between 2012 and 2017, leaving some financially ruined. But the scandal was only fully exposed by the work of a small number of MPs, who persistently questioned ministers and called for total transparency.
RTL Nieuws reported last week that ministers had tried to make CDA parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt, who was one of the government’s main critics over the scandal, ‘see sense’ – prompting calls for the relevant cabinet minutes to be made public.
Dutch ‘Tax Haven’ Status Challenged as Rutte Tips Left in Ballot Bloomberg 3/16/2021 Diederik Baazil
(Bloomberg) In the early hours of the morning on Oct. 5, 2018, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s phone lit up with a text message: “Mark are you awake? I need to talk to you.” It was Paul Polman, then chief executive officer of Unilever Plc.
Polman told Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad sometime later that he sent that text because he wanted to tell Rutte about a decision made by the Anglo-Dutch personal care products company before it was made public. Unilever that day announced that it was abandoning plans to consolidate its headquarters in the Netherlands, settling instead for London.
The committee announces its findings. Photo: Bart Maat ANP
An ‘unparalleled wrong’ has been done to parents who were accused of defrauding the childcare benefit system, a parliamentary committee investigating the scandal said on Thursday.
Ministers, civil servants, parliament and even judges had a role in the affair, which left parents powerless to fight back when accused of cheating, the committee, led by CDA MP Chris van Dam, said in its final report. Everyone involved in the state apparatus should ask themselves how such a thing can be prevented from happening in the future, the report, based on several weeks of hearings, said.