• Latest
  • Trending
Dutch Government Resigns Over Child Welfare Fraud Scandal

Dutch Government Resigns Over Child Welfare Fraud Scandal

January 16, 2021
Covid-19: Nigeria Records New High  as Confirmed Cases Pass 1000 Mark

Covid Vaccines :We Have to Work with the Country We Have, Not the One We Wish We Had, Nigeria’s Disease Control Boss, Ihekweazu Says

February 26, 2021
Britain Bans New Huawei 5G Kit Installation from September 2021

Reeling from US sanctions, China’s Huawei Plans Foray into Electric Vehicles

February 26, 2021

Niger State Governor Says Federal Government Not Helping in Securing Kagara Schoolboys’ Release

February 26, 2021
Biden to Sign Executive Orders Reversing Trump Actions in First Days in Office, to Rejoin WHO and Paris Accord

US Conducts Air Strikes on ‘Iran-backed Militia’ in Syria

February 26, 2021

Parents Need to Be Involved in Children’s Learning Process to Halt Dwindling Quality of Education, Polly Alakija Says

February 26, 2021
ARISE.TV HEADLINES 26-02-21

ARISE.TV HEADLINES 26-02-21

February 26, 2021

Bandits Abduct Over 300 Schoolgirls in Nigeria’s Northwestern Zamfara State

February 26, 2021
Buhari ‘Disgusted’ By CNN, BBC Coverage of #EndSARS Protests

Buhari Warns Against Ethnic Profiling, Promises to Deal With Insurgents

February 26, 2021
RwandAir to Become First in Africa to Implement IATA Travel Pass

RwandAir to Become First in Africa to Implement IATA Travel Pass

February 26, 2021
ARISE XCHANGE

ARISE XCHANGE

February 25, 2021
Admiral Joe Aikhomu, Chairman Ocean Marine, Dies at 65

Admiral Joe Aikhomu, Chairman Ocean Marine, Dies at 65

February 25, 2021
Nathaniel, 9, Travelled to London to Get a Prosthetic Eye. Now He Needs £850,000 to Live after Leukaemia Diagnosis (WATCH)

Nathaniel, 9, Travelled to London to Get a Prosthetic Eye. Now He Needs £850,000 to Live after Leukaemia Diagnosis (WATCH)

February 25, 2021
ARISE Correspondent Receives Covid Vaccine in UK, Investigates Low Uptake in Black Community

ARISE Correspondent Receives Covid Vaccine in UK, Investigates Low Uptake in Black Community

February 25, 2021

ARISE NEWSDAY

February 25, 2021
Mozambique Receives First Batch of Sinopharm Covid-19 Vaccine Doses

Mozambique Receives First Batch of Sinopharm Covid-19 Vaccine Doses

February 25, 2021
Abuja Plane Crash: Seven Air Force Personnel Buried in Military Cemetary

Abuja Plane Crash: Seven Air Force Personnel Buried in Military Cemetary

February 25, 2021
Nigeria’s Attorney General Malami Won’t Allow New Anti-graft Boss Bawa Succeed, Sagay Says

Nigeria’s Attorney General Malami Won’t Allow New Anti-graft Boss Bawa Succeed, Sagay Says

February 25, 2021
Ivorian Opposition Seeks to Upset Ouattara’s Parliamentary Majority

Ivorian Opposition Seeks to Upset Ouattara’s Parliamentary Majority

February 25, 2021

Global Business Report

February 25, 2021

Morning Show

February 25, 2021
India Releases New Rules to Regulate Social Media, Digital News Platforms

India Releases New Rules to Regulate Social Media, Digital News Platforms

February 25, 2021
Over 1.3 Million Texans Still Grappling With Water Supply Disruptions

Over 1.3 Million Texans Still Grappling With Water Supply Disruptions

February 25, 2021
Report: More Than 6,500 Migrant Workers Have Died During Qatar’s World Cup Prep

Report: More Than 6,500 Migrant Workers Have Died During Qatar’s World Cup Prep

February 25, 2021
Nigerian Journalists are Criminals for Calling Bandits Criminals, Sheikh Gumi Alleges

Nigerian Journalists are Criminals for Calling Bandits Criminals, Sheikh Gumi Alleges (Full Interview)

February 25, 2021
Following Devaluation of Naira, Fitch Upgrades Nigeria’s Outlook to ‘Stable’

Fitch Revises Nigeria’s 2021 GDP Growth Forecast to 1.6% from 2.3%

February 25, 2021
Qantas Aims to Restart Most International Flights in October

Qantas Aims to Restart Most International Flights in October

February 25, 2021

Moderna Set to Test Coronavirus Booster Shot For South African Strain

February 25, 2021
ARISE.TV HEADLINES 25/02/21

ARISE.TV HEADLINES 25/02/21

February 25, 2021
After Public Outcry, Ghana Police Shut LGBT Centre in Accra

After Public Outcry, Ghana Police Shut LGBT Centre in Accra

February 25, 2021
Aston Martin Expects Better 2021 Sales after Deep Losses

Aston Martin Expects Better 2021 Sales after Deep Losses

February 25, 2021
en English
ar Arabiczh-CN Chinese (Simplified)nl Dutchen Englishfr Frenchde Germanit Italianpt Portugueseru Russianes Spanish
No Result
View All Result
Friday, February 26, 2021
Arise News
  • HOME
  • Breaking
  • Global
  • Regional
  • BUSINESS
  • Politics
    • US ELECTION
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • TECH
  • Health
  • VIDEOS
  • Covid-19 Updates
Arise News
  • HOME
  • Breaking
  • Global
  • Regional
  • BUSINESS
  • Politics
    • US ELECTION
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • TECH
  • Health
  • VIDEOS
  • Covid-19 Updates
No Result
View All Result
Arise News
No Result
View All Result
Home Global

Dutch Government Resigns Over Child Welfare Fraud Scandal

January 16, 2021
Reading Time: 6min
0 0
0
Dutch Government Resigns Over Child Welfare Fraud Scandal
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The Dutch government has stepped down after thousands of families were wrongly accused of child welfare fraud and told to pay money back. Families suffered an “unparalleled wrong”, MPs decided, with tax officials, politicians, judges and civil servants leaving them powerless.

Many of those affected were from an immigrant background and hundreds were plunged into financial difficulty.

PM Mark Rutte submitted the cabinet’s resignation to the king.

“Innocent people have been criminalised and their lives ruined,” he then told reporters, adding that responsibility for what had gone wrong lay with the cabinet. “The buck stops here.”

The “unanimous” decision, taken at a cabinet meeting in The Hague, comes at a key moment in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Netherlands has gone into lockdown and ministers have been considering stiffer measures to halt the spread of infection.

The government will stay on in a caretaker role to tackle the pandemic until parliamentary elections in March but Economics Minister Eric Wiebes has quit with immediate effect for his role in the scandal. Asked whether the cabinet’s resignation was merely symbolic, Mr Rutte was adamant that it was not.

After a Friday cabinet meeting the Dutch leader cycled to the palace to submit the government’s resignation to King Willem-Alexander

This is not the first time a Dutch government has resigned en masse in a gesture of collective responsibility. In 2002, the cabinet stood down after a report criticised ministers and the military for failing to prevent the massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war seven years earlier.

Parents were branded fraudsters over minor errors such as missing signatures on paperwork, and erroneously forced to pay back tens of thousands of euros given by the government to offset the cost of childcare, with no means of redress. They were, as one junior minister who resigned in connection with the scandal put it, “steamrolled” by the system.

Families were left in a state of ruin, by a state apparatus that became “the enemy of the people”.

Relationships disintegrated under the pressure, homes were lost, mothers have spoken tearfully of the financial and psychological anguish they suffered after being targeted by tax officials.

Last year the tax office admitted that 11,000 people were subjected to extra scrutiny simply because they had dual nationality. This confession has reinforced the widely held belief among many ethnic minorities in the Netherlands that discrimination against them is institutionalised and perpetuated by those in power.

The new ministers and state secretaries of the cabinet Rutte III pose for a group photo with King Willem-Alexander (C) and Prime Minister Mark Rutte at Palace Noordeinde in The Hague, Netherlands on October 26, 2017

But while being seen as the responsible, honourable response – sacrificing power in an admission of government failure – the mass resignation could be interpreted as an act of self-preservation by the Rutte government that avoids the prospect of losing a no-confidence vote by MPs next week.

The scandal began in 2012 and the number of parents involved could be as high as 26,000. Some openly called for the government to step down, saying they had lost faith in the ability of the cabinet to clean up the system.

One mother faced demands to pay tax authorities around €48,000 (£42,000). She tried to explain to the authorities that mistakes had been made but officials then started withholding not just childcare allowances but other benefits too.

Her rent went into arrears and energy companies refused to provide a regular supply. Eventually she lost her job and could not find another as she was seen as a fraudster. Her relationship with her child broke down as the pressure took its toll.

“Rutte says he thinks it’s terrible, but he’s not the one who had to pay up… This shouldn’t happen in the Netherlands – I’ve been labelled a fraudster,” another mother, Nazan Aydin, told NOS.

Rutte’s liberal VVD party is performing well in the opinion polls, so the 17 March election could see another Rutte-led administration. He has already led three governments since 2010.

Although he initially opposed the cabinet’s resignation, it was seen as inevitable once the opposition Labour leader Lodewijk Asscher resigned on Thursday in response to the scandal. Mr Asscher was social affairs minister under the previous Rutte coalition government.

Rutte heads a four-party centre-right-liberal coalition and his party leads the latest opinion polls, ahead of far-right leader Geert Wilders.

However, victims of the childcare allowance scandal who had to repay large sums paid out in benefit have this week filed a formal complaint against several current and former ministers.

Compensation to the tune of at least €30,000 (£26,000) each is to be paid out to parents who were wrongly accused, but many have argued it is not enough.

Ahead of the government’s decision to step down, Sigrid Kaag, the leader of the liberal D66 party said it was “important to be politically accountable and to take responsibility for the content of the report and for the injustice done to the parents”.

State Secretary for Finance Alexandra van Huffelen said children caught up in the fraud scandal should also be looked after so they could “soon move on”.

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2020 Arise News - Part of the Arise Media Group.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • Breaking
  • Global
  • Regional
  • BUSINESS
  • Politics
    • US ELECTION
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • TECH
  • Health
  • VIDEOS
  • Covid-19 Updates

© 2020 Arise News - Part of the Arise Media Group.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist