At the last minute before the debate, it also emerged on Wednesday evening that former State Secretary Sander Dekker was making a private trip with Rijxman to Israel when he was dealing with Media.
no pleasure
The big question in both cases is whether the close relationship that Dekker and the top official had with Rijxman should have been reported in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. According to the rules, this is up to the officials themselves, but MPs are not satisfied with that.
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“Administrative class doesn’t consist entirely of half-wits, does it?”
“What does this say about the political sensitivity of those above us?” SP MP Peter Kwint wonders aloud during the debate. “The administrative class is not entirely made up of half-wits, is it?” According to him, no code or rules should be necessary to consider that it is not a good idea to go on holiday with Rijxman, if you are the one who gives the public broadcaster money.
‘Network Corruption’
Other MPs share that feeling. PVV’er Martin Bosma invariably speaks of ‘network corruption’ when it comes to Rijxman, now alderman for D66 in Amsterdam, and her party members. “The essence of this is that there is a small club that continuously passes the ball to each other. In the D66 job circuit, toilet duck becomes an ordinary alderman in Amsterdam.”
The fact that the resulting picture is not favorable is also endorsed by coalition MPs. ‘Not pretty,’ says VVD member Pim van Strien about the escapades of Rijxman and his party colleague Dekker. D66 member Sjoerd Sjoerdsma also finds it ‘not useful’.
The debate arose from revelations about the treatment of a whistleblower at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. They knocked on MPs Zohair El Yassini (VVD) and Harry van der Molen (CDA) with a story about dubious financial constructions at public broadcasting, in which star presenters would exceed the cap for salaries at the NPO via production houses. The whistleblower was able to tell his story to the highest official of the ministry, but he turns out to be good friends with Rijxman. In response to these revelations, Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, D66) announced an investigation by the independent Central Government Audit Service. On Thursday, the Media Authority also announced an investigation into how conflicts of interest can be avoided in these kinds of issues.
Awaiting research results
“We want to await the results of those investigations”, was the line of both Dijkgraaf and his colleague Gunay Uslu, State Secretary for Media, during the debate.
After three hours of squabbling, a majority of the House finally decides to continue after the summer recess, when the findings of the investigations are public. Yet the three-hour debate is not seen as entirely meaningless. VVD member Van Strien is happy that a debate has been held. “To show the whistleblowers in the Netherlands that we think it’s important.”