Peter Omtzegt, who will begin his long-awaited return to the House of Representatives on Wednesday, has announced his participation in the Afghanistan debate. The government’s slow response is not surprising. “Some things haven’t changed since I left. I don’t mean the state of government formation of course, but the fact that the answers to the Afghan questions – which I wanted to read on the train – haven’t come through yet.”
This is the second time in a short time that information on this topic has been provided of late. The important previous document on Afghanistan – a factual report from the three departments of State, Defense and Justice – was delivered against promises only sometime in the early hours. As a result, the deputies have trouble preparing for the debates.
“Really scandalous,” PvdA Representative Katy Perry explodes. The new member of Parliament looks with astonishment at how normal it is in The Hague to be trained to answer pressing questions, and asked Chamber President Vera Bergkamp on Tuesday afternoon to urgently ask the Cabinet for an answer. In vain because the answer will not be sent to the House of Representatives until late Tuesday evening.
“Poor performance in terms of size”
Derk Boswijk (CDA) and Jasper van Dijk (SP) are also unhappy with the situation. Van Dijk talks about “again a big failure”. “I’m only going to sleep, because I have to get up at 6 a.m. for a work visit,” Busvik says around 10 p.m. “After that I have to go directly to The Hague, so I have practically no time to study the documents seriously. It doesn’t make sense.”
GL MP Laura Bromet also closes her eyes shortly after 10 o’clock. “I’m going to sleep. Preparing the debate on Afghanistan into something worth too. I’m very curious whether Parliamentary questions will be answered tomorrow morning. Dreaming of sanctions,” she joked on Twitter.
“Questions have yet to be answered by Root and Kag,” Tonahan Kozu, MP for Dink, complained Tuesday night. “We are expected to read over 200 pages in order to be well prepared,” said Tonahan Kuzu (DENK). “My normal employer would have fired them long ago.” Webern van Haga of the Van Haga Collection sees it as “really scandalous”. “Unfortunately, it’s typical of this closet.”
