Sywert van Lienden and his partner Camille van Gestel from Workum are said to have selflessly bought mouth masks for Dutch healthcare, but in practice they did good business with their own commercial company.
De Volkskrant revealed this on Saturday. Sywert van Lienden was chairman of the Landelijk Aktie Komitee Scholieren (LAKS) and in recent years was mainly known as a political commentator and regular guest at The world moves on. Camillie van Gestel is the man behind the WakaWaka solar lights and until recently ran the Anno 1908 bed and breakfast in Workum together with his wife.
Aid Troops Alliance Foundation
At the end of March last year, the pair and a third partner set up the Foundation for Help Troops Alliance to selflessly purchase mouth masks for healthcare in the Netherlands. At the time, Van Lienden fiercely criticized the great shortage of mouth masks in hospitals and nursing homes. Through his network he managed to do business in China. To the outside world it was constantly emphasized that the foundation is not profit-making and that the directors do not receive any remuneration.
Quite quickly after the founding of the Auxiliary Troops Alliance, Van Lienden and Van Gestel also set up a commercial enterprise: Relief Goods Alliance, a ‘wholesaler in medical and dental instruments’. It is this company and not the Auxiliary Troops Alliance that is involved in two major deals involving a total of 40 million face masks with a combined value of 100.8 million euros.
Competition-technical reasons
Van Lienden and Van Gestel claim that they did this at the insistence of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. A company had to be set up because a foundation could not cooperate with the government for ‘competition-technical reasons’, Van Gestel explains in de Volkskrant. VWS top official Mark Frequin rejects this explanation. The ministry thought it was doing business with the Auxiliary Troops Alliance, and not with a commercial bv.
I did not become a millionaire
Van Lienden does not want to say how much he has earned with the mouth cap trade. He says he has signed confidentiality clauses about this. De Volkskrant puts forward those involved who argue that he and van Gestel have become rich with it. Van Gestel admits in the newspaper that “there is something left” and that it “was worth doing.” “But I definitely did not become a millionaire.”
Van Gestel was not available for further explanation.
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