‘National police force short of money and 500 officers’

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The national police force is short of both money and staff, making it impossible to do its job properly, the head of the force works council told the AD in an interview on Tuesday.

‘We have a backlog when it comes to staffing and the organisation,’ Richard Bronswijk told the paper. ‘The reorganisation of the national police force has been disastrous for us.’

The creation of a new national police force was based on the situation prior to 2012, Bronswijk said. ‘But look what we’ve had added to our duties since then,’ he said, referring to the threat of terrorism. ‘All in all, we are short of 500 officers.’

Bronswijk and police union chief Jan Struijs told the paper that creation of a centralised admin centre in 2013 has been a ‘bureaucratic nightmare’. In some cases, undercover operations have been cancelled because it is taking too long to get passports, visas and special equipment.

‘Colleagues who needed night vision binoculars have had to borrow them from Belgium,’ Struijs said. ‘They drove to the Belgian border to pick them up.’

The department currently employs 4,800 people and there are 100 vacancies, the AD said.

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