2023-08-31 07:17:00
Wanted: an experienced manager who can start immediately to put an end to the growing poverty in Rotterdam. This is what the vacancy for the vacated alderman’s post should look like, if it’s up to the Rotterdam opposition parties. Just before he was due to defend his plans to combat poverty, Denk alderman Enes Yigit resigned last week. Various parties in the city council fear that his departure will cause stagnation on an important file.
On Thursday, the Rotterdam council will debate how to proceed with the poverty policy. “Poverty reduction should be a top priority,” says PvdA council member Sarah Reitema, one of the applicants for the debate. She hopes to hear from the council how the vacancy can be prevented from getting even more Rotterdammers into trouble.
Full-time alderman for combating poverty
The poverty problem is big in Rotterdam. Some 85,000 people in the city earn too little to provide basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing and health care. About 50,000 Rotterdammers are struggling with debts. It was the reason that Liveable Rotterdam, VVD, D66 and Denk decided last year during the coalition negotiations that the subject deserved its own full-time alderman. On behalf of the new mayor and aldermen, the 32-year-old Yigit became alderman for poverty reduction, debt assistance and language.
A year following his appointment, Yigit suddenly announced last Sunday that he is stepping down. The timing was striking, because just this week was discussed for the first time in a committee debate the poverty plan that the alderman has been working on since he took office. That plan states, among other things, that the municipality wants to invest more in ‘early identification’, so that debts do not rise and that there must be an easy-to-fill-in website where Rotterdammers can check which money pots they can appeal to.
It was Denk colleague Faouzi Achbar, alderman for welfare, society and sport, who was allowed to defend himself on behalf of the council on Wednesday once morest criticism from councilors that the plan would not be concrete enough and would mainly consist of existing measures, without financial substantiation. “Flets”, Robbert-Jan van de Werken, citizen council member on behalf of the ChristenUnie, called the poverty plan. “Not that it’s bad, but clear choices are missing,” was his summary.
Criticism for a long time
It is not new that the Rotterdam opposition criticizes the poverty plans. In recent months, discussions have regularly escalated in the council. For example, GroenLinks, PvdA and CDA, among others, find it incomprehensible that the council intends to cut the poverty fund, intended to help Rotterdammers in need, including children.
The PvdA is not impressed by the counterargument of the coalition parties that on balance the council spends more money than previous councils on poverty reduction, because at the same time more money is allocated for debt assistance. Reitema: “The municipality is legally obliged to offer debt assistance. The number of Rotterdam residents who applied for it rose by 88 percent last year, so the costs also rose. That’s not a choice. Where the council does have a choice, it mainly cuts on poverty.”
Dissatisfaction with performance of alderman
Yigit’s performance was also regularly criticized. For example, he would prepare badly for debates and cancel important appointments. The moment Yigit left, it worked AD to a story in which those involved (anonymously) expressed their dissatisfaction regarding the functioning of the poverty alderman. It finally appeared shortly following Yigit announced that he was stepping down from his position.
Yigit does not respond to the accusations once morest him, although his farewell message makes it clear that he does not agree. In it he speaks of ‘disproportionate resistance’. “It was sometimes difficult for me not to be judged on the content of my work, but on my person.”
Because Yigit has resigned immediately, he will not be present at the debate regarding his departure on Thursday. Denk will look for a successor.
Read also:
More and more Rotterdammers have too little money for food, the Red Cross sees
The Red Cross in Rotterdam sees an increase in the number of people in need of food. The organization wants more places to be issued and that the problem is better mapped out.
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