State Secretary Snel is all set to resign from his post. This is after he found out that he will get the “smallest possible majority” in the house of representatives. The debate was going to be about Snel being suspected of “unlawful cessation of child daycare allowances”, reports NOS.
New evidence has resurfaced about the childcare allowance affair, where a number of parents were falsely accused of being fraudsters. Child daycare allowance was either stopped or they had to repay thousands of euros. The new evidence (an evaluation report from 2015) points to the fact that State Secretary Snel knew there were more parents affected than he let on.
If you’re wondering what this whole controversy is about, then we’ve got you. Basically, the Dutch state provides an allowance to families who put their children in daycare- it’s an affordable way for parents to be able to work, and not spend all their income on daycare for the kids. Parents who made a tiny mistake when applying for the allowance- just out of sloppiness or ignorance- were classified as fraudsters by the tax authorities. They were told they had to pay back the allowance immediately. But this was a mistake on the tax authorities’ and Snel’s behalf, and now the parents are being compensated for the mistake.
Klaver from GroenLinks believes that things are not going to get better even if Snel were to leave. He says the current system of providing child daycare allowance is not robust enough and has its faults.
This will be the third minister who resigns before his term ends.
Do you think the childcare allowance system needs to be changed? Let us know in the comments below!
Feature Image: Henriëtte Guest/wikiportret.nl