16 October 2008

Finance Minister to look into provincial councils funds
After it emerged that local and provincial councils may have lost EUR 250 million deposited in bankrupt Icelandic and US banks, Finance Minister Wouter Bos tells AD, he wants an investigation into whether the provincial councils have too much money. Any money left over should be returned to the people.

The Association of Dutch Municipalities denies that local councils were irresponsible with taxpayers' money.

Bos says: "It's madness that local governments shop around abroad for a slightly higher percentage, instead of depositing their money in safe accounts."

Exorbitant bonuses to go
The party appears to be over for golden handshakes and exorbitant bonuses.

In the past, De Volkskrant reports that government interference in the remuneration of bankers was unthinkable. But as the bonus culture is seen as one of the factors compounding the credit crisis, Bos is calling for a new code of practice.

The new managing director of ABN Amro, Michael Enthoven will be paid just as much as an experienced civil servant.

Incidentally Dagblad De Pers questions whether putting the president of the first Dutch Bank to go under, the NIBC, in charge of running ABN Amro is such a good idea.
 
Former GreenLeft MP opens activism exhibition
Former GreenLeft MP Wijnand Duyvendak, who was recently forced to resign because of his radical activist past, seems to have returned to his core business.

De Volkskrant reports he has opened an exhibition on activism in the 1970s and 1980s in Amsterdam's Resistance Museum. In between the Palestinian scarves and hippy trousers, hang posters appealing against racism, nuclear bombs, the fur trade and even against the coronation in 1980.

The former MP admits times have changed. "The streets are not the streets anymore, they are public spaces. The tram stops, where the protest posters used to hang, now display lingerie advertisements."

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