Parliament agrees to transparant procedure

The Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament adopted a motion of the Democratic Party D66 and ChristianUnion on Tuesday, to create more transparency in the appointment procedure of the National Government Representative for Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba. This is reported by The Daily Herald.

The motion of D66 Member of Parliament (MP) Wassila Hachchi, co-signed by MP Gert-Jan Segers of the ChristianUnion, called for a review of the appointment procedure before May 2014, when the current National Government Representative (Rijksvertegenwoordiger) Wilbert Stolte resigns. According to the petitioners, Stolte’s appointment appeared to have taken place behind closed doors. “Decisions on who to appoint are taken in back rooms. This contributes to nepotism and hampers integrity,” Hachchi said during the handling of the 2014 draft Kingdom Relations budget last Wednesday.

The motion stated that the current appointment procedure insufficiently complied with the requirements of transparency and openness of government. The public entities Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba should also be more actively involved in the appointment of a new National Government Representative as this would contribute to a bigger bearing surface on the islands.

The Second Chamber also adopted a second motion of Hachchi’s, co-signed by Segers and Madeleine van Toorenburg of the Christian Democratic Party CDA, ordering the Dutch Government to find a solution for the technical problems that residents of the public entities encounter when they want to make use of Dutch websites. The so-called IP addresses of island residents are viewed as foreign addresses when they go on a Dutch website. This prevents residents from gaining access to Dutch media programmes and sometimes even Dutch Government websites, including the website of the Dutch Tax Department.