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"A Vast Enterprise of Looting"
EFL:The European Commission was facing a crisis last night after its auditors found Brussels had failed to shut down a network of slush funds and that abuses had spread beyond a statistics office at the centre of the scandal. MEPs called for the head of Pedro Solbes, the economics commissioner, after a final audit report leaked yesterday said missing records and the total breakdown of financial control at Eurostat, the statistics agency, made it impossible to know how much taxpayersâ money had vanished or what it was used for. Investigators identified the loss of £3 million in "a vast enterprise of looting" by senior officials in Luxembourg, mostly through inflated contracts with outside firms. Eurostat kept no central register of its contracts and records were missing "or destroyed" in 54 per cent of cases. "Not even copies of bank statements have been kept," the report said. Well, at least they are efficient at something. The few documents that have come to light from the slush funds, known as "financial reserves", show payments of £7,500 to the "Casino equestrian society" and £1,700 to the "Beaufort equestrian club" but auditors are certain that was just the tip of the iceberg. -insert horse sh*t jokes here- Lack of records made it impossible to discover any truth to Eurostat staff claims that slush funds were used "to get the job done" in the face of red tape. "We cannot give an opinion on the possibility of fraud involving personal enrichment," said the report. Oh, but we can. Posted by: Steve 2003-10-29 |
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