Photo: Bic via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch parents who were wrongly accused of fraud by the Dutch tax office and forced to repay thousands in childcare benefit want their names cleared and better support from local councils.
Rotterdam city council last Friday announced that it will be repaying the private debts that the worst-affected 50 local victims took on in order to pay back benefits. But others have told DutchNews.nl that it is unclear what has happened with €11m the government has given local councils to help, while consistent, practical support is desperately needed.
‘It won’t work for every council to have its own policies,’ said Lynn Woodrow, one wronged parent from Sneek in Friesland. ‘It’s not that council employees don’t want to help: they don’t get any information. The communication between the VNG [councils’ association], the tax office and the town councils seems very bad.’
BBC News
By Anna Holligan
image captionThirty-seven parties are standing in the Dutch election
His government collapsed over a racial profiling scandal in the tax office, his country was the last in Europe to roll-out its vaccination programme, and with an average of 5,000 new daily infections, the Netherlands remains under its strictest lockdown to date.
And yet, Mark Rutte, the prime minister who presided over all of this, is odds on for a fourth term in an election involving 37 different political parties.
Why this election matters
With coronavirus restrictions in place, polls opened for vulnerable voters on 15 March, and everyone else votes on Wednesday in what will be the first Covid election in the EU this year.
Dutch head to polls as Covid crisis looms large bbc.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bbc.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.