Halsema admits mistakes in the costly appointment of advisor Lennart Booij

Also read: Amsterdam suspends hiring advisor Halsema

No vacancy

The issue came to light at the end of last week via student magazine Propria Cures, which had requested internal documents about Booijs’ appointment. This showed that Booij received a fee of 10,000 euros (excluding VAT) per month for twenty hours of work per week. Halsema was not aware of Booijs’s fee, she said: she had only checked with the municipal secretary whether his hourly rate was below the municipal standard.

Opposition and coalition parties were particularly critical of both the way in which Booij was appointed and the “exorbitant” compensation (VVD member Marianne Poot) he received. Coalition party PvdA called the affair “damaging the image of Amsterdam.”

Halsema emphasized that Booijs’ appointment has remained within the municipal rules. But from the report of the facts that she and municipal secretary Peter Teesink presented to the council, it appeared that errors and carelessness were piled up.

Booij was personally nominated by Halsema in January 2020 as quartermaster. The search for a suitable candidate took a long time and was “not easy”, according to Halsema, who has the festivities for Amsterdam 750 in her portfolio. “I called half the city to see if they knew anyone.”

Booij was awarded the contract privately, without a public vacancy or European tender. He was appointed for nine months, with a possible extension for the same period. Yet he remained in office for almost twenty-four months, and no one at City Hall noticed that his contract term had been exceeded – not even Booij himself. How was that possible? Administrative and official failure, according to Halsema. When officials took no action on an automatic notification about the imminent end of Booijs’s appointment, his contract was deleted from the system. He had thus administratively “got under the radar”, according to Halsema. Remarkably enough, Booijs monthly declarations were then simply paid, because he was still included in the financial system of the municipality.

second opinion

Another mistake was made, as the debate revealed. Municipal secretary Teesink obtained an exemption from the municipal rules for Booij’s job, which stipulate that jobs above 50,000 euros are put out to public tender. Although that permission was valid for eighteen months, the contract with Booij accidentally ended up with a longer duration: 24 months.

As a result, it remains unclear whether the contract was lawful. The lawyers of the municipality think so, according to Teesink, because of “the intention” not to hire Booij for longer than 18 months. Some of the council disagreed with him. Halsema promised to ask for a second opinion.

The mayor was also critical of her own role during the debate. “I did not inquire about the contractual agreements with Mr Booij, and you can blame me for that.” And “looking back,” she admitted, it would have been better to just run a job posting for the position. “That would have saved him a lot of grief.”

Halsema did defend herself fiercely against the suggestion of favoritism. Various parties suggested that Booij got the job because he is an acquaintance of Halsema – he belonged to a group of confidants that secretly trained her for her application for mayor. That suggestion had “touched her deeply”, according to Halsema. “We don’t hang out together, we don’t drink wine together. We are acquaintances.”