THE HAGUE, 28/01/04 - Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner does not know how often people bring a foreign marriage partner to the Netherlands based on a fake employment contract. The scale of the fraud is impossible to measure, he said yesterday in parliament.

The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) has sent 274 cases to the welfare payments body UWV to check up on in the past half year, because doubts existed on the validity of the contracts, said Donner. He does not know whether this is the tip of the iceberg. The phenomenon of the fake contracts is known to his ministry, but it is not possible to demonstrate exactly how often it occurs, he added. Donner declined to say how many of the 274 dubious cases did indeed involve fake contracts.

Around 75 percent of Turks and Moroccans born in the Netherlands bring in a bride or groom from their parents' country. The importing partner must earn 70 percent of the minimum wage for a more than one-person household. If living alone and receiving welfare, he or she does not meet this standard.

Christian democrat (CDA) MP Sterk had requested clarification of reports that possibly thousands of Moroccans and Turks have a partner come over by making agreements with companies or dubious temporary employment bureaus. The bureau sets up a fake employment contract and pays the appropriate premiums to the government, which the 'employee' pays back to the bureau.

Donner pointed out that the fraudster has to pay all premiums for at least three to four years, roughly 300 euros a month, to maintain the fiction of a job "because new partners only receive a work permit after a few years." Sterk however doubts whether the check holds water.