WILLEMSTAD - “These were special times under the Schotte cabinet, a government of an unprecedented nature in the Kingdom of the Netherlands,” said the Court in Willemstad in its verdict against directors of the former Stichting Buro Ziektekostendiensten (BZV) the health insurance bureau.
The Court has sentenced two former directors to compensation of 4 million guilders because of their mismanagement. There was, according to the verdict, a "pattern of violations" and "grandiose money squandering", partly driven by former minister Jacinta Constancia, who had previously been convicted of fraud.
“For the Schotte cabinet, expertise was of secondary importance”, the Court notes, which finds that the suspects are not only perpetrators but also victims: “They had no insight into their own incompetence” and did not benefit from their mismanagement themselves. Incidentally, the Court suspects that the damage caused is much greater than 4 million.
The Court notes with undisguised regret that more directors of government entities have not been held accountable for mismanagement. In the two years that Schotte was Prime Minister, hundreds of millions were probably concealed. In its judgment, the Court also considers the attempt of current Minister Pietersz-Janga (Public Health) to intervene in the legal process to prevent prosecution of the former BZV directors.
Schotte, Constancia and Pieters-Janga are all part of the current governing party MFK.