Patient transport for asylum seekers is being abused on a large scale, with both asylum seekers and taxi drivers taking advantage of a flawed control system.
In 2023, some 70.000 taxi rides were ordered for over 11.000 asylum seekers. The bill for this is fully reimbursed by the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), but how much tax money is involved remains a mystery. Both the COA and the transport companies involved refuse to provide transparency about the exact amounts. From research from the Algemeen Dagblad it appears that thousands of rides are booked without a valid reason, while the government seems to have no insight into the actual costs.
fraud-prone system
Responsibility for the medical care of asylum seekers lies with the commercial company Gezondheidszorg Asielzoekers (GZA), which arranges taxi transport via the transport companies Snel Een Taxi and ZCN Vervoer. However, the monitoring of these journeys appears to be seriously inadequate. An email exchange between the COA and GZA from 2023 reveals that there is no standard check on the hospital appointments for which taxis are ordered. Employees of the so-called Praktijklijn, a telephone service that arranges journeys, only ask for confirmation if they have a 'gut feeling' that something is wrong. This allowed asylum seekers to easily order taxis without an actual medical appointment.
The documents show that an asylum seeker ordered a whopping €2500 worth of taxi rides to a hospital, even though he had no appointment there. The fraud was discovered by chance, but the incident raises questions about how many similar cases go unnoticed.
The extent of the financial loss from these abuses remains unknown, as stakeholders refuse to provide insight into the total costs. Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to foot the bill for a system rife with abuse.
The AD tried to gain access to documents about patient transport via the Open Government Act (Woo), but the COA initially refused this at the request of GZA. After a legal procedure, the file was released, albeit largely blacked out. In a remarkable blunder, the COA accidentally sent an unblacked out version at the end of 2024. This shows that there have been concerns about the abuse of patient transport for years.
ghost rides and 'no-shows'
Not only asylum seekers are taking advantage of the weak controls, taxi drivers also appear to be creative in their efforts to earn money. In the event of a so-called 'no-show' - when an asylum seeker does not show up - drivers still receive 80 percent of the fare, without actually driving a meter. This invites fraud, with some drivers claiming rides without a passenger ever getting on.
A former employee of the transit system tells how drivers made up rides or simply didn’t show up. “Asylum seekers would call to say the taxi wasn’t coming, but drivers would claim they were there. I would have to quickly arrange a new taxi, even though the first driver had already earned money without driving.”
In addition, some drivers abuse the taxi ordering app, in which the COA registration number of asylum seekers is visible. By pretending to be an asylum seeker, they can book fictitious rides and collect the money. A former employee calls these drivers "crooks" and says that the problem is much bigger than people think.
Although fraud appears to be widespread, drastic measures have yet to be taken. The COA and GZA acknowledge the problems, but no concrete steps to make the system less susceptible to fraud appear to be taken.
