When talk first started about Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament (MPs) taking a pay cut due to the dire financial-economic and social circumstances caused by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, most people took a wait-and-see attitude. After all, some years ago the late Roy Marlin while in Parliament at a certain point put a petition on paper to lower their salaries and requested support for such from others, but as it turned out he was the only one to sign up.
Nevertheless, a 10-per-cent salary reduction for ministers and parliamentarians is part of the second 2018 budget amendment sent to the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT in September. What’s more, it was supposed to be done “voluntarily” by October 1.
The latter makes sense, because – based on the separation of powers – obviously the executive branch of government cannot determine this for the legislative branch. However, there appears to have been no clear decision-making on the issue by the elected representatives so far.
As October’s salaries in the public sector have already been paid, the target date mentioned to introduce this austerity measure has been surpassed. The CFT understandably wants to know when it will be done.
While Finance Ministers aren’t authorised to enter into commitments on behalf of Parliament, when something gets included in a national budget that generally means it’s a serious intention. Moreover, the continued approval and backing of CFT is required not only by law, but to obtain still-badly-needed liquidity support in the form of soft loans from the Netherlands.
There consequently doesn’t seem to be much of a choice at this juncture. As far as CFT and in all probability the Dutch government are concerned, a promise made is a promise kept.
