Alexandra van Huffelen, one of the two new state secretaries of Finance, is one of her first acts to visit parents who have been duped by the allowance affair with the Tax Authorities. She said that after she was received by Prime Minister Rutte op het Torentje.
Van Huffelen will be sworn in tomorrow, along with the other new Secretary of State Hans Vijlbrief, by King Willem-Alexander. “I really want to do it,” she said. “I thought about it carefully, because I had a good job as director of the Municipal Transport Company in Amsterdam.”
In her new role, Van Huffelen will be responsible for solving the problems with childcare allowances. Certainly hundreds of parents were wrongly accused of fraud and as a result got into serious problems. State Secretary Snel had to resign because of that affair.
Trust lost
“The problems are great, parents have become messed up and have lost faith in the government. Justice must be done and we must regain their trust,” she said.
The new State Secretary does not yet know how long it will take before all parents are out of trouble. “First we have to map out how big the problems are, how many parents have been duped. I will do my utmost to restore confidence as quickly as possible.”
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