Senior officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs have for years ignored distress signals about problems at the Center for Safe Living (CVW). This is evident from documents that are in the possession of RTV Noord. From 2015 to the end of 2019, the CVW was responsible in Groningen for handling earthquake damage and strengthening homes.
Former National Coordinator Groningen (NCG) Hans Alders warned the ministry in the summer of 2017 that the company did not comply with agreements and that Groningen residents were the victims. Nevertheless, no intervention has been carried out all this time, so that the reinforcement operation is lagging behind. Although the ministry has been warned several times by Alders, the ministry denies that it knew about the problems at the CVW at the time.
“Colossal disgrace”
In October 2019, Minister Wiebes laid in a interview with RTV Noord the fault of the failing reinforcement operation at the CVW. According to Wiebes, the company had not complied with the agreements. He spoke of a “colossal disgrace” and “a complete surprise”. He further called the CVW one black box. “We didn’t get in there, didn’t know the numbers, and we didn’t know exactly what was happening there. That was really the NAM.” Wiebes was referring to the gas extraction company that ran the CVW.
The ministry says it was not really aware of the problems at the CVW until May 2019 when it was updated by the National Gas Production Coordinator. The NCG then substantiated with figures that the CVW, which is responsible for making houses in Groningen earthquake proof, does not perform and does not comply with agreements. This was confirmed by independent research from the Ministry. In the interview, Wiebes said that he would have liked to have been aware of the problems much earlier.
But now it appears that his ministry had been informed for years.
Things not under control
In the summer of 2017, Alders warned the official summit of Economic Affairs and Climate that “NAM / CVW is not in control” and that “agreements are not being met”. On July 17 of that year, Alders wrote to Maarten Camps, the chief executive of the ministry, that the CVW had ‘lost’ 1000 inspections. “All interim reports have shown a distorted picture. To date, CVW has been unable to provide insight into which addresses have not been inspected, so that the NCG cannot communicate with affected residents about the lack of inspections. “
NAM influence
Furthermore, Alders warned of the influence of the NAM. “We found by chance that NAM has removed a number of inspected homes from the program because it believes that certain matters are not meaningful or do not fall within their liability. This happens unilaterally, without the NCG being informed of this . Let alone that the agreements made with the residents concerned are respected. “
A few months later, another warning from Alders followed. “The agreements about the SAs (reinforcement advice, ed.) Are not being complied with. This means that to this day there are no reinforcement advice for people who were inspected in the spring of 2016.” Alders also noted that the NAM gives the impression that things are deliberately “delayed and delayed”, so that “as little as possible has to be done and costs are saved.”
Hard to prove
In a written statement to the regional broadcaster, the ministry acknowledges that “there were earlier signals from the region that things were not going well”, but that it was “difficult to prove. You want to get that really hard with facts and figures,” he said. the Ministry. Despite the exchange of mail from 2017, which is in the hands of RTV Noord, the ministry still says that it was not until May 2019 that the facts were “black on white” on the table.
Contradictory signals
According to the ministry, the signals from Alders were difficult “to get factual and hard”, because signals were received from the region from different organizations – sometimes contradictory -. In addition, a spokesperson said “that sometimes it takes a while in The Hague for signals to really penetrate”. Moreover, in the eyes of the ministry, action was taken by taking over the management of the CVW on 16 May 2019 and later deciding to discontinue the business. “Full work was done in the months before,” says a spokesperson.
According to the ministry, “previous signals from the region” have been the reason to investigate the state of affairs at the CVW. The assignment for the investigation was only given in the spring of 2019, while Alders warned about the problems two years earlier.
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