Consultancy firm Deloitte would like to see the private emails of Minister Hugo de Jonge (Mass Housing) for the investigation into the 100 million euro mask deal between the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) and the company Sywert van Lienden. As Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, De Jonge used the rules in his personal email.
“We also ask you to provide (commercial) data that may be relevant to the investigation,” Deloitte writes in a letter to VWS CEO Marcelis Boereboom. “If that is not possible, we would like to know why this data is not available for research.”
De Jonge fell out of favor when it became known that he occasionally used his private e-mail as minister of VWS during the corona crisis. It is not prohibited, but is strongly discouraged for safety reasons.
This also meant that De Jonge’s e-mails could not be retrieved via a WOB query. Earlier this month, he received a lot of criticism from part of the House of Representatives during the debate on the mask issue.
According to De Jonge, e-mails can simply be requested. It only forwarded some messages to a private address, because it “plays with passwords that have to be reset so often that you can’t remember the password you entered”. He sent some messages to his private mailbox so that he could view the documents.
Nevertheless, Boereboom wrote in a response on Tuesday that private e-mails from ministers to Deloitte would not come out in this way. VWS will only cooperate “if private e-mail is used for investigative business correspondence”. Deloitte first submits a new reasoned request for this.
Disputes about research between VWS and Deloitte
The communication between VWS and Deloitte is already quite good, according to the correspondence. The investigation was repeatedly postponed to the opposition’s dismay. The parties want more clarity in the agreement on mouth masks.
Deloitte writes that she had to wait a long time for documents from the relevant ministry. The research firm said everything should be in place by March 15, but the practice proved more rebellious. “It’s impossible to get all the requested data in two weeks.”
In response, VWS states that Deloitte has not adhered to the (confidentiality) agreements that were made when requesting the documents. In order to communicate the data accurately, the department had to take “a lot of manpower, time and resources”.
Minister Conny Helder of Long-term Care and Sport describes Deloitte’s letter as “official”, but assures the House of Representatives that the personal conversation between researchers and the ministry was “constructive”.
As a result, it is extremely uncertain whether the first part of the investigation, which only relates to the deal with Van Lienden, will be completed before the summer holidays.
Source: NU
Jason Jack is an experienced technology journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in computer science and engineering, he has a deep understanding of the latest technology trends and developments. He writes about a wide range of technology topics, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, software development, and cybersecurity.
