NVWA

The Dutch government will spend around 1 billion euros more on IT projects than originally planned, Financieele Dagblad concludes after analyzing 125 recent ICT initiatives by the national government.

The original budget for the analyzed projects was approximately 2.5 billion euros. The expected costs have now risen to 3.5 billion euros, according to the newspaper. On average, the projects are 36 percent over budget. For 22 projects, costs doubled.

Dutch slaughterhouses do not always care about animal welfare. Pigs drowning in piping hot water and calves being skinned alive are among the cruelties inspectors found, RTL Nieuws reports based on documents requested from the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA.

The Netherlands is immediately withdrawing from an international committee that gives the tobacco industry advice on measuring nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide in their products, according to newspaper Trouw.

The national institute for public health RIVM and the Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA believe that the tobacco industry has too much influence on the committee, and therefore decided to withdraw. According to the newspaper, eight of the 10 members in the Dutch committee come from the tobacco industry.

Signs of fraud in the registering of dairy cows were found at 2,100 cattle farms, Minister Carola Schouten of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality announced in a letter to the Tweede Kamer on Thursday. These farms are blocked, which means that no animals can be transported or removed, while further investigation is done, the Minister said.

Agricultural organization LTO Nederland is threatening to take Dutch food safety authority NVWA to court over the fipronil contaminated egg scandal earlier this year. The NVWA must pay back the damages poultry farmers suffered due to this crisis, according to LTO. So far 120 poultry farmers joined this action in claiming damages around 50 million euros, RTL Nieuws reports.

A ginger cat was caught taste-testing donuts in a Jamin store on the Rokin in Amsterdam on Saturday night. VVD city councilor Tjakko Dijk noticed the remarkable display as he walked by, recorded it and posted a video on Twitter.

The video shows the self satisfied cat going to town on a pink donut. Dijk wondered what the Dutch food safety authority NVWA would say about that.

Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA will get an extra 25 million euros next year due to concerns about the authority's capacity following the fipronil contaminated egg scandal, according to RTL Nieuws. The government will announce this extra investment on Budget Day, sources told the broadcaster.

Dutch food safety authority NVWA is facing fierce criticism in the Tweede Kamer on Thursday. The parliamentarians have nothing good to say about the NVWA's actions in dealing with millions of Dutch eggs being contaminated by toxic insecticide fipronil. In summary, the MPs accused the NVWA of not communicating well, not responding adequately to an anonymous tip about the contamination and having an inadequate setup to deal with such a crisis, NU.nl reports.

Thirteen supermarket chains affiliated with Superunie quietly recalled waffles and cookies from their shelves on Wednesday because they contain toxic insecticide fipronil, AD reported on Thursday. "We expect more such silent recalls", Wilco Jansen of Emté said to the newspaper. "There are many products with a lot of egg in them. No idea where this is going to end."

Two Dutch suspects arrested last week in connection with the so-called fipronil scandal, will be arraigned on Tuesday. The magistrate will decide whether they will be kept in custody, ANP reports. 

Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA denies that it first learned that eggs were maybe contaminated by toxic fipronil in November last year. The authority did receive a report about fipronil in that month, but that report only stated that it had been used to clean stables - there was no reason to believe that it could end up in eggs and pose a potential health risk, inspector general Rob van Lint said on Wednesday, RTL Nieuws reports.