National ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen warns the national government against “administrative spaghetti” in compensating the victims of the benefits affair. “That must really be prevented,” he says News hour.
According to Van Zutphen, the complaints handling up to mid-February went sufficiently to good, he says today in a report. But there is much more to the Implementation Organization Herstel Toeslagen, the body that handles the complaints. “There are already so many complaints and there will probably be many more. The organization must be prepared for that. I have doubts about whether that will work.”
But it is not only the numbers of complaints that cause Van Zutphen to worry. He also fears the lawsuits that will follow, for example because people who are not compensated will go to court. “There is still a lot to come to that organization, also when it comes to legal settlement. And then we have all those other arrangements.”
Losing the thread
Today it was announced that the cabinet will all private debts of duped parents is going to take over. After a first reading of these regulations, Van Zutphen concluded that they are very detailed and therefore difficult for an average citizen to understand. “They get in the way of generosity and speed.”
That is what Van Zutphen means by that administrative spaghetti, as a result of which victims lose the thread. He used the term before the settlement of the earthquake damage in Groningen. “Be prepared that it will really become even more complicated, that additional questions will arise,” he told the cabinet and the tax authorities. “A lot of people are disappointed. Confidence doesn’t just come back and if you already know that now, you have to start working on it tomorrow.”
According to the ombudsman, employees of the Implementation Organization for Recovery Allowances should go to victims who ask questions to help them with a solution. This applies, for example, to the people who were initially rejected for the € 30,000 compensation from the so-called Catshuis scheme. “Quickly explain what’s going on and you might find out that these people are entitled to that money after all.”
Nieuwsuur spoke with Mirusca Lambert-Ible, who was wrongly identified as a fraudster and was forced to repay thousands of euros. But when she signed up for the compensation scheme, she was rejected. The tax authorities gave no reason for this, much to the frustration of Lambert-Ible:
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