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\n\tTwo municipal employees in the Dutch city of Rotterdam have been dismissed following an investigation into alleged corruption involving construction contracts. They include work connected to asbestos removal at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, one of the country\u2019s most important museums.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe employees were among three officials investigated after concerns emerged that municipal contracts had been approved at inflated prices. One of the three has since retired, while the other two were suspended and have now been fired.<\/p>\n
\n\tRotterdam mayor Carola Schouten said an internal investigation found that the two employees had violated the city\u2019s code of conduct by accepting gifts from companies doing business with the municipality in return for possible preferential treatment. They are also suspected of forgery and passive bribery.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe allegations first came to wider attention in 2023, when Dutch newspaper\u00a0NRC Handelsblad<\/em>\u00a0reported concerns about possible corruption surrounding construction projects at Rotterdam cultural institutions, including the asbestos treatment at Boijmans Van Beuningen. The city subsequently asked police to investigate, and a criminal inquiry by the public prosecutor remains underway.<\/p>\n \n\tThe city\u2019s executive board said information received from prosecutors in July indicated that the two employees\u2019 conduct was \u201csubstantially worse\u201d than had emerged during the initial internal investigation. \n\tMuseum Boijmans Van Beuningen has declined to comment, saying responsibility for its buildings and their renovation rests with the municipality.<\/p>\n \n\tThe museum closed in 2019 for a major redevelopment. Its collection has remained partly accessible through Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, which opened in 2021 and houses around 154,000 works. The museum is currently slated to reopen in 2029 following the renovation, which includes making the building asbestos free.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/museum-boijmans-van-beuningen-alleged-bribery-scandal-1234796228\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2227935346.jpg?w=1024″] Two municipal employees in the Dutch city of Rotterdam have been dismissed following an investigation into alleged corruption involving construction contracts. They include work connected to asbestos removal at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, one of the country\u2019s most important museums. The employees were among three officials investigated after concerns emerged that municipal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2116775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2116775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2116775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2116775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2116775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Diederik van Dommelen, Rotterdam\u2019s head of financial affairs, told the Art Newspaper<\/em>\u00a0the ongoing criminal investigation limits what the city can disclose. The dismissed employees can challenge their termination through an employment tribunal.<\/p>\n