Home » Business » Minister Hugo De Jonge incorrectly informed the Senate about the Environment Act | Inland

Minister Hugo De Jonge incorrectly informed the Senate about the Environment Act | Inland

The ministry acknowledges in a response that a mistake has been made. “Unfortunately, the details of the response suggested that there would be no changes to the system by April. However, there were still small changes to be made.” According to a spokesperson for Hugo de Jonge, the slippage was later rectified in a new cabinet letter to the Senate. The matter was also further explained in an oral consultation, he says.

The Environment Act has been giving the cabinet headaches for some time. The law should ensure that laws related to spatial planning are modernised, consolidated and simplified. This requires a solid computer system. Earlier, the project had to be postponed because planning software for municipalities, water boards and provinces was not yet up to par. The law should have come into force on 1 July, but De Jonge is now aiming for 1 January 2023.

Senate member Saskia Kluit of GroenLinks calls it “worrying” that the Senate was incorrectly informed by the minister. The group asked written questions on Monday; an unusual step for the Senate during the recess.

Not the first time

It is not the first time that the Senate has been incompletely informed about the progress of the Environment and Planning Act, says Kluit. “How can the Senate trust the completeness and reliability of the information that the minister shares with us?” the GroenLinks senator wants to know, among other things.

The case started to roll when Domestic Administration requested documents containing interview reports from the officials and software experts involved. “The minister’s letter suggests that it is stable (…) and in some respects it just isn’t,” said a software vendor in one of the reports. He is talking about the Digital System Environment Act. An official acknowledges this, but says the answer was ‘hurried work’.

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