The board of GroenLinks Drenthe wants the discredited Sam Pormes (69) to give up his seat in the Drenthe Parliament. The GroenLinks faction in the Drenthe Provincial Council also loses confidence in him.
Pormes was discredited this weekend because of a conviction for fraud with PGB funds in 2017. He never reported this to the party, to the dismay of the Drenthe party board and the national party bureau.
The judge ordered Pormes to repay 13,500 euros in healthcare money, because he and his agency Meskota could not account for the care provided. Pormes never reported this conviction to the party.
In a statement, Fenna Bolding, the chairman of GroenLinks Drenthe and fellow party member Mira Hamraoui say they are disappointed that they were never informed of this. “Not now, but also not in the preliminary phase, while we believe there has been enough opportunity for that.” By this they refer to the period when Pormes was designated as GroenLinks leader for the Provincial Council elections this spring. He was also on the list for the provincial elections in 2018.
The statement of the political party further states: “Integrity and honesty are crucial for us in the cooperation within the group. There is now a crack in it, which is why the group has lost confidence in Sam Pormes, supported by the GroenLinks Drenthe board.”
The board and the faction say they have tried to get in touch with Pormes, who is currently on holiday in the Moluccas. “While every effort has been made to inform Sam of our decision, we have been unable to contact him.”
Whether Pormes actually returns his seat and leaves as a Member of Parliament is not known. He can choose to keep his seat.
Pormes has often been discredited in the past. When he was a member of the Senate, from 2001 to 2006, the party board of GroenLinks had a further investigation into him in 2005. Even then, he had concealed matters from his past, or so the accusation was.
For example, repeated allegations surfaced that in 1976 he had taken part in a guerrilla training camp in South Yemen. He is also said to have been involved in the Moluccan train hijacking of De Punt in 1977 and in the shooting of a police car in the Moluccan district of Assen. He also played a role in the financial disarray at the Moluccan addiction care institution Masiun, which went bankrupt, and he was accused of fraud with unemployment benefits.
Sam Pormes was not available for comment for RTV Drenthe.