THE HAGUE - An equal salary for members of all four Parliaments in the Dutch Kingdom based on the average income of the country.

 

That is what Member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP) will propose during the meetings with his colleagues of the Kingdom in St. Maarten this week.

 

Members of Parliament (MPs) should not earn too much because high salaries attract people that are only interested in representing the people for monetary gain. “High salaries attract people who love money too much,” Van Raak told The Daily Herald before the departure of the Dutch Parliamentary delegation to St. Maarten on Sunday for the Inter-Parliamentary Consultation of the Kingdom IPKO.

 

Van Raak lauded the St. Maarten proposal to take measures to, what he called, “Prevent bribery and ship-jumping.” He was very positive about the proposal to increase the role of political parties and to strengthen them.

 

“Bribery starts with politicians that can be bought. Political parties can play an important role in educating their members. Parties should receive a subsidy to train their people. Politics is a profession that requires training,” he said.

 

According to Van Raak, the salaries also need to be levelled to prevent that people want to get into Parliament for the money. That is why he will be proposing during the IPKO this week to reduce the salaries of Parliamentarians throughout the Kingdom to the average income of the country that they represent.

 

That means that the salary of Parliamentarians in St. Maarten would be about US $3,000 and in the Netherlands some 3,000 euros. Currently, Members of the Second Chamber earn about 7,500 euros per month.

 

Members of the St. Maarten Parliament have a remuneration of about US $10,000 per month, which in Van Raak’s opinion is “astronomical” and attracts the wrong people. “We need politicians who are not driven by money and who are not sensitive to briberies out of love for money,” he said.

 

Van Raak wants to discuss his proposal during the IPKO this week in the sphere of the talks about good governance and increasing integrity of the governments in the Kingdom. If the Parliaments were to approve his proposal, all Members of the Parliaments in the Kingdom would earn the same salary based on the average income of their country.

 

The SP already has a system in place for many years where people’s representatives hand in a large portion of their salary to the party and only earn a remuneration that is slightly above the average income. “We invest in our own party,” said Van Raak.