Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-23-Speech-2-257"
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"en.20011023.12.2-257"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to pay Mrs Rühle a compliment. It is clear that her instincts were good when she postponed the discharge for the European Development Funds back in spring. We in the Committee for Budgetary Control had at that point not received any substantial information at all on follow-up measures in connection with cases of fraud discovered in 1999. However, we now very definitely know what we could only assume at that point, and that is that both the Commission and the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, have had to lower their sights. For example, fraud in the health sector in the Ivory Coast was discovered in 1998/1999. Medical equipment including disposable syringes and baby scales had for years been claimed at many times their actual value. The loss was estimated at around EUR 27.4 million. When this case came to light, the, at that time, newly appointed Commission said that this money would of course have to be repaid. We now know that this money has not been returned to the European Development Fund. According to the Commission the reason for this is that it was legally impossible to demand the money back!
I do not want to go into any further detail here, but this demonstrates how difficult it is to take corrective action once money has been transferred. Furthermore, in the ACP States, OLAF does not have the same powers of control as it has in the EU Member States, not to mention the fact that it purely and simply does not have the staff to run a comprehensive anti-fraud operation out of Brussels.
It is therefore vital for us to exert pressure to ensure that there is a general improvement in the way public money is looked after in the recipient countries. Countries that cannot protect their own tax revenue against fraud, corruption and waste are unlikely to be able to provide effective protection for EU funds. However, for the Commission this also means that it should step up its presence in the recipient countries – and on this point I am in agreement with the rapporteur – but not only by increasing the number of officials in the delegations, but, also, by giving those local delegations more authority. It should not, after all, be possible to circumvent local delegations in practice by coming to special arrangements direct with Brussels. Once again, my heartfelt congratulations on your report, Mrs Rühle. We are very happy to vote for it."@en1
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