President of the House Vera Bergkamp retains the confidence of a large majority of the House of Representatives. The previously announced investigation into former Chamber President Khadija Arib will also continue.
That is the result of a weeks-long riot in the House of Representatives. This arose after the daily board of the Chamber (the presidium) had an investigation carried out into Arib after anonymous complaints had been submitted about her. This was very much against the will of a large number of parties who felt that the Presidium had gone beyond its remit. Bergkamp’s position faltered.
In any other organization, Bergkamp had already been to the UWV five times
The disagreement reached a climax last Friday when the officials in charge of the House staff resigned out of dissatisfaction with the entire course of events. In their farewell letter, the resigned top officials criticized the way in which both the Presidium and the rest of the House of Representatives had derailed things. According to them, this leads to an ‘unsafe work situation’ for Chamber staff. Earlier, the staff had complained via the works council that the MPs paid more attention to Arib’s position than to them.
The resignation of the leadership of the House staff was a signal for many parties to limit the damage that had been caused to the reputation of the House of Representatives as quickly as possible. Various group chairmen have been involved behind the scenes in recent days with the issue and called for things not to escalate further.
Bergkamp
During a debate on the whole issue, it turned out that almost all parties supported both the presidium and the investigation into Arib. Only the PVV stated that Bergkamp should step down as chairman. “In any other organization, Bergkamp had already been at the UWV five times,” said PVV MP Gidi Markuszower. “Anonymous complaints should not be a reason to investigate a Member of Parliament.”
But the rest of the House of Representatives thinks otherwise. The research is being carried out by research agency Hoffmann and should be completed in February 2013. Bergkamp emphasized that the investigation is only intended to see whether the anonymous complaints really happened. ,,We did not go ice cream overnight. If it had only been anonymous complaints, we would not have started this investigation. But the complaints were recognized by management.”
If the investigation reveals that things have indeed happened that cannot be accepted, there will be a broader investigation into the entire working climate in parliament, Bergkamp announced.
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