There is unrest in the party board of the New Social Contract (NSC), the party founded last year by Pieter Omtzigt.
Treasurer Ralph Joosten was “relieved of his duties” this week by the rest of the board, said board member Kilian Wawoe, co-founder of the party and confidant of Omtzigt, in response to an article in.
The explanations for the cause of the split vary widely. According to Joosten, it concerns possible financial irregularities. But board member Wawoe says that there are complaints about the collaboration with Joosten and that this was the reason to suspend him.
Not transparent
Joosten has been treasurer at NSC since April of this year. “Then you investigate how the party is doing and I quickly discovered that there are possible irregularities in the administration.”
According to him, there are two possible cases of fraud and the board would not be open to his comments on this. “This is not good governance and it is also not transparent,” says Joosten.
Difficult cooperation
He says he has demanded an external audit, which the party board commissioned this week. He also says he has reported a number of things to the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK), which is responsible for financial supervision of political parties.
According to board member Wawoe, “several reports have been received by the board about difficult cooperation” with Joosten. He does not want to comment on the content of those complaints.
He does say that they date from before Joosten’s criticism of the administration. According to him, these complaints were the reason for the rest of the board to set aside the treasurer.
Opposition and obstruction
According to Wawoe, the external audit that the board has commissioned into the financial administration, in response to Joosten’s comments, will be completed in January and will be made public.
“As a political party, we are bound by accounting regulations and so, following his reports, we engaged a certified agency to investigate this.” The board says it does not recognise Joosten’s criticism of the financial administration.
Joosten says that the complaints about the cooperation with him are all “related to no openness, no transparency and no cooperation from the board and even opposition and obstruction”. Furthermore, he does not want to be responsible for matters that other party board members have created and approved.
The Ministry of BZK cannot yet say whether financial irregularities have indeed been reported at NSC. A spokesperson says he will come back to the question.