Take action against undermining crime as quickly as possible. That seems to be the message from the majority of the council in Hoogeveen to the municipal council.
Last night the recently published Court of Audit report on subversive crime in Hoogeveen was discussed.
Subversion is an opportunity for criminals to carry out illegal activities through legal companies. That would happen a lot in Hoogeveen, the researchers say in the report. Scores are high in the areas of drug trafficking, cannabis cultivation and real estate abuses.
The Court of Audit hopes that the municipality will therefore take action by coming up with the right policy, rules and enforcement. Or by deploying more boas and better identifying undermining. Almost all factions are in favor of that proposal.
A final decision had not yet been made, the council was first allowed to debate the points for improvement suggested by the Court of Audit. As far as Jeroen Pomper of the SP was concerned, a debate would not have been necessary at all. “The research shows that the problem is major. It is good to identify the undermining. So action is necessary.”
Hilma Hooijer from Gemeentebelangen agreed with those words. “As far as we are concerned, this report clearly shows that the need is there. The recommendations therefore seem completely logical to us.” The same applies to the PvdA. “The council must tackle this seriously. A tit-for-tat policy. The pace can be increased considerably.”
Arjan Kleine of Forum for Democracy found it difficult to agree with the points for improvement. He thinks the research is twofold. For example, he cites some of the research on the car industry. This looked at how findable car companies are, for example on the internet, in Hoogeveen. According to the Court of Audit, almost half are not clearly visible and this could possibly indicate shady practices. “So if you have a bad website, you could be shady. We shouldn’t push on. Deploying extra boas doesn’t seem logical to us.”
The report is an eye-opener for the CDA. “Is this about our Hoogeveen?” said councilor Haaije Feenstra-Paas. According to him, the report came inside and must be taken seriously.
The Court of Auditors previously presented the conclusions to the council. The municipal council responded rather timidly and stated that it did not want to draw hasty conclusions. More research was needed, she stated.
The Court of Audit was not happy with that response. They felt that the council was downplaying the findings of the investigation.
CDA member Feenstra-Paas is therefore surprised by the response of the municipal council. “As a director, your hands start to itch when you read this report. You still want to take action. I thought the council’s response was very substandard.”
Mayor Karel Loohuis responded for the first time to the conclusions of the report. “We take it very seriously. That is why we are coming up with a plan. Yet we have to go a spade deeper. How much capacity does it cost us to tackle the problems? What does it cost us in terms of money? What does a similar research has been produced in other municipalities? And have their problems improved? All things that we really need to think about carefully. But the problem is there and we are not looking away.”
Hettie Pullen of the Christian Union understood the mayor’s answer, but believes that the municipality must act quickly. “You can of course start by better identifying where undermining is taking place.”
Loohuis agreed. “But it is true that you have to train people to do this. The same applies to the number of boas we have. Give us four extra, that is of course very nice, but they also have to know what they are dealing with. Training takes time.”
According to him, it is also not the task of the municipality to arrest criminals. “Working preventively, drawing up policy, enforcement and rules helps. However, we still have to cooperate well with the police.”
The council will soon vote on whether to definitively adopt the Court of Audit’s recommendations.