No increase AOV for now

The Daily Herald writes that Dutch State Secretary Jetta Klijnsma does not intend to increase old age AOV pension for Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius (BES islands) as long as she does not have concrete, quantitative data at her disposal. She hopes to receive such this year from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). “Also for the AOV, I want to hold to the aforementioned link between improvement of the level of benefits and the economic capacity and stable social relationships on the islands,” the state secretary wrote in reply to questions from the Permanent Committee for Kingdom Relations in the Second Chamber of Parliament in The Hague.
The Dutch Government is in the process of improving the social-economic situation in the Caribbean Netherlands for an acceptable level of provisions, in addition to the agreements made since 10-10-10 to further improve the legal minimum wage and the benefits in the future, within the pre-conditions of economic capacity. Flanking measures are also important for stable social relationships and budgetary space, according to the state secretary.
Within that framework Klijnsma recently decided to structurally add 600,000 euros to the budget “integral approach” for preventing poverty and debt problems on the three overseas special public bodies. “With this I aim to boost the islands’ poverty policy, for which means are also available from the so-called ‘free payment’.”
The Kingdom Relations Committee wanted an explanation concerning an acceptable level of provisions in the Netherlands and which criteria are used to determine such. According to the state secretary, the existing levels could be improved gradually if the relevant data on the economic capacity calls for such. CBS is currently providing insight into this information. The level of services will also be included in the evaluation of the constitutional structure of the Caribbean Netherlands. The state secretary was unable to give a time span to realise a higher level of services.