Police works council resigns over expense irregularities

The members of the police's Central Works Council (CWC) resigned on Monday night following an investigation that showed that they wasted considerable sums of money from the CWC budget, ANP reports.

The investigation revealed that a large part of the CWC's 1.6 million euro budget was spent on dinners ,parties, nights in hotels with champagne breakfast and hiring image coaches, among other things.

"We were waiting for the conclusions of the police chief and endorse this. What happened affects the credibility of employee participation. The trust was damaged. We regret that our colleagues are reprimanded on the street on the situation that arose around the CWC", the council said in a statement.

Police chief Erik Akerboom presnted the conclusions of the investigation last week. "There was inefficient and increasingly disproportionate exenditure." he said. Among other things, the issues are the results of the individual actions of CWC chairman Frank Giltay, who resigned immediately after the investigation was announced, he said. Akerboom added that Giltay showed a lack of responsiblity and the CWC did not supervise him properly.

Minister Ard van der Steur of Security and Justice announced an independent investigation into the role of former police chief Gerard Bouman in this whole affair. Some believe he used the unusually high CWC budget to bribe its members into making difficult decisions around the reorganization into the National Police. It is not yet clear who will do this investigation, when it will start or how long it will take.