The Dutch cabinet has resigned following the release of a reporting condemning the government for its role in a child care benefits scandal.
This 2017 photo shows Prime Minister Mark Rute, center left, and Dutch King Willem-Alexander, center, posing with ministers on the steps of Royal Palace Noordeinde in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) The Dutch government offered its resignation to the king on Friday after a report detailed its role in a 2019 scandal over the mismanagement of child care subsidies.
“Innocent people have been criminalized, their lives have been destroyed and Parliament has been incorrectly and incompletely informed about this,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a press conference following the announcement.
The Dutch government will decide on Friday whether to step down over an escalating scandal in which tax officials wrongly accused thousands of parents of fraud, plunging many families into debt by ordering them to repay childcare allowances. The opposition Labour party leader, Lodewijk Asscher, who was social affairs minister in the previous government, resigned over the affair on Thursday, denying he knew the tax authority was “wrongly hunting.