Bruvaxgate chases Brussels health minister
After the revelation that employers can see with one click which inhabitants of Brussels have been vaccinated or not, the Brussels reservation system Bruvax will be adapted. The opposition parties are still outraged that Brussels Health Minister Alain Maron (Ecolo) is ‘hiding’.
After De Tijd and Le Soir reported the data breach at the Brussels registration platform for vaccinations on Tuesday Bruvax have, the system is adjusted.
An ‘update’ of the reservation system is planned on Friday to ‘avoid any possible distraction from a person’s vaccination status’, the Brussels Joint Community Commission (GGC) reports in a press release on Thursday evening.
Without that update, an employer, an insurer of a bank with only a national register number and a postal code of a resident of Brussels can see in an instant whether he has been vaccinated or not.
Maron under fire
Yet the van E minister Alain Maron (colo) remains the head of Jut. Several opposition parties are urging Maron to explain to Parliament in Brussels, but he has not yet done so. Brussels N-VA Member of Parliament Gilles Verstraeten talks about ‘playing hide and seek’, while the PVDA is ‘outraged’ about the way the Bruvax scandal is being swept under the carpet.
The Brussels opposition party MR is also in all states. MR chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez talks about ‘Bruvaxgate’ and finds Maron ‘totally incompetent’. Brussels MP David Leisterh speaks of a ‘denial of democracy’.
The day of the unveiling Maron performed though. He argues for the ‘importance of respect for privacy laws’. He also promised that the system would be adjusted if necessary.
‘In any other policy area, in any other government in this country, it is normal for the minister to take political responsibility’, says Verstraeten. ‘A minister who plays hide and seek and hides behind his administration, elders everywhere would be considered unkind. It has become a regular practice in Brussels.’
Maron assured Belga that he will be at the disposal of parliament as soon as it has decided on the moment to hear him.