“Unprecedented injustice.” For example, the childcare interrogation committee describes in its report what has been done to many parents in the childcare allowance affair. The critical report was published this afternoon and none of those involved are spared by the committee. Duped parents aren’t surprised about it hard report.
Many parents ran into problems in the childcare allowance affair because they were wrongly treated as fraudsters. They often had to pay back tens of thousands of euros in benefits, which often led to financial and social problems.
‘Wonder I’m still here’
Kristie Rongen is one of the parents who wrongfully had to repay money to the tax authorities. She therefore has a debt of 92,000 euros and is in debt counseling, she says. Rongen lives on 50 euros a week. From 2008 she had to pay back the childcare allowance. At the time she was a single mother with three young children, her youngest child is now 19. “It’s a shame how it all turned out, it’s just unbelievable.”
Rongen agrees that there has been “irreparable suffering” caused by the affair. “It gave me a lot of damage. I spent two years at home with a burnout and it is a miracle that I am still here”, she says. “Fortunately I have strong children around me and my mother was there for me. Without them and other people I just wouldn’t have made it in terms of food.”
Her car was taken over by the affair, she almost lost her house, she says. Her son could also no longer pay for his studies because he used his student finance to help her with the rent. “You feel totally powerless, everything is taken from you. I became terrified of the street and did not dare to speak to anyone anymore. When the doorbell rang I was afraid that there would be another bailiff in front of you.”
Following the interrogations in recent weeks raised many emotions in Rongen. “I watched it with anger. Every now and then I really yelled at the TV, like ‘do you hear me ?!’. I got angry with the lying, the sudden Alzheimer’s.”
The committee says in the report that all parts of the state should think about how issues such as the childcare allowance affair can be prevented in the future and how the injustice can be corrected. This cannot be done fast enough for Rongen. “I have now heard that I will receive full compensation, but I don’t know when yet.”
Scars remain
The victim Nazmiye Yigit-Karaduman also thinks that the compensation should be hurried. “We have been hit hard by this, so there must be very good compensation for all the parents and children who have been affected.” The trouble started for Yigit-Karaduman in 2013, when she had to pay back 32,000 euros in childcare allowance within two weeks.
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