VVD chairman under fire over crematorium deal conflict of interest

The chairman of the right-wing Liberal party VVD is under fire for his involvement in a controversial million euro crematorium deal.

Henry Keizer took over the commercial arm of the Dutch crematorium association in 2012 for €12.5m, even though the company had been valued at €31.5m.

At the time, he was also an advisor to the association, website Follow the Money revealed last week. But it now transpires that Keizer is also chairman of the association and this allows him to control what information about the 2012 deal is made public.

Legal experts told the Volkskrant Keizer cannot run a company which operates seven crematoria while at the same time chairing the association, because the association’s statutes make this impossible.

‘It is very odd that he is running the show,’ law professor Tymen van der Ploeg told the paper. ‘His appointment is void. The board must take action.’

A spokesman for Keizer told the paper that there is no conflict of interest because Keizer is not primarily involved in running crematoria.

Keizer himself told a selected group of journalists on Friday that he had acted with ‘complete integrity’. Follow the Money, which broke the story, was refused access to the meeting.

The VVD has also decided not to refer the claims to its integrity committee.