Join the new world

Summary
I know that I will need every vote, and I hope I have yours. In Eastern Netherlands, last month the congress members were elected with 4 or 5 votes, while many others in East with 4 votes were not elected. Really every single vote counts. I count on you.

I stand for:
- Changing our name to reflect our Unity
- Financial transparency
- Investor Relations
- Budget Control
- An eUNL Information Age

Introduction
When I ran for congress last month, financial transparency and the name change were my main points. Although unfortunately I did not get elected to Congress last month, I did get the confidence of the formateur and congress members in a different position: Minister of Finance. This enabled me not only to strive for more financial transparency, but to actually making it happen! Whether I managed to do that, I leave up to you all individually, but I am encouraged by the many nice comments about it.

Still, I have points that I want to improve, and that is why I run for Congress again. I will run in Eastern Netherlands, which is a quite tough province. Last month, all congress members were elected with 4 or 5 votes, while many others in East with 4 votes were not elected. There aren’t many BP members in East, so also hope on votes of people that are not in the BP. Please note that I will handle in the best of the eUNL, and therefore, I hope that all eUNL citizens will consider voting on me.

My most important strong points are that I have an analytical approach to all problems, that I am very active both in eRep and on the forum, and that I have financial experience, both IRL and as eUNL Minister of Finance. I am weaker areas like foreign affairs and military, but I know what is happening thanks to the forum and ingame articles.

Changing our name to reflect our Unity
I support changing the eUNL name into something that more reflects the Union we have. In my opinion, the eBenelux (eBNL) would be the best name – having the advantage that it also gives the players from the RL country Luxembourg a place to stay (as Luxembourg doesn’t exist ingame). A place where they can feel home. If possible, I’d support all initiatives to get Luxembourg as region added to eRep, although that might prove to be hard.

Financial transparency
I have made a start as Minister of Finance with providing an overview of what is happening in the financial department of the eUNL, and I hope this can be kept up. This should at least be the balances (incl. the differences with the previous report), and an explanation of all donations made for DNB, State Accounts and Ministerie van Economische Zak. Preferably, also some background information on financial decisions should be given (incl. ingame laws), actions done by Ministry of Finance, and balances of other departments.

Investor Relations
A stable market is mainly steered by the many investors that are active on our market. The more players, the more competitive the offers will be on the moneytary market, and the less volatile. In my period as Minister of Finance, I have had contact with foreign investors who had huge amounts of NLG, as we wanted them back on the market. After several times contact, they put their NLG on the market against the price of 1 NLG = 0.016 G. I am convinced that honest communication helps. Based on this experience, I’d like to give all kinds of Investor Relations more attention, to get more monetary market investors to the Netherlands. The government should actively continue to keep the rates between set borders to avoid opportunistic behaviour.

Budget Control
As I have tried to gain as much information as possible on how much the different ministries used last weeks, I think it’s time to make some conclusions out of it. I would like to set up a budget for each ministry. Regarding process, everything will initially stay the same: they request money/gold when they need it (so they don’t get it in advance), and they can get money if they exceed the budget. However, it should only be in case of of a good reason. The benefit will be that we can compare the budget with the expected income for a period. The government, mainly the Minister of Finances, can be challenged on the budget and their actual costs at the end of the mandate. Ofcourse, they can end up above budget as long as there are good reasons, or even below budget – performing cheaper than expected. To start with, it would mainly be about giving expectations.

An eUNL Information Age
Last month, the government made good work of the communication to all eUNL citizens. I think this should be continued, and even taken to a next level. Every department should get some advertising budget - just 1G per week would do, to start with. They have to spend this on advertising any relevant subject, linking to one of their articles. This would make all governmental newspaper known to all players, including new players. Besides that, I think a more low level and more fun communication line should be opened. As pilot, Theneka and I started the “Ministry of Spam”. This is just for fun, and we’ll have to see how that works out. If it does work out, it might be something that can be taken up by government officials, when Theneka and I won’t get (re)elected.

November Mandata - Minister of Finance
As I am writing this article now anyway, I’d like to express that I would be honored if I could follow up my October mandate as Minister of Finances with another mandate in the same function. I feel my job is not yet done. I want to continue to provide the transparency, I want to build forward upon it by implementing budget control, and I want to see what benefits can be gained from investor relations. If I will get the confidence again, I will do my best to make this happen. I will write the president and my party president with these intentions.

Due to holidays, I will not be online the last few days of my mandate, but Cocoamok will back me up. I will ofcourse provide a last report of the mandate, and include the money spend on the different departments. I hope this will not be my last report as Minister of Finance.

However, whether I can fulfill this duty again, is up to the formateur, the congress, and of course the voters, who can decide which parties will get enough votes to get into the coalition.

Thanks for your time.

Kind regards,
Boklevski