91998E3613

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3613/98

by Nelly Maes (ARE) to the Commission

(3 December 1998)

Subject: Real scale of the ECHO affair

The European Commission says that only BEF 20 million was actually involved in the ECHO affair and not BEF 96 million, as some people claimed.

How can the Commission make this statement? If UCLAF establishes that the four contracts were bogus and that payments were made on the basis of bogus documents, we can only assume that all the expenditure, i.e. the entire BEF 96 million, was paid out in a totally irregular manner. Is that true? Is the Commission prepared to demand repayment of the entire BEF 96 million?

Then can the Commission confirm that the ECHO affair does not extend beyond the four bogus contracts for humanitarian aid to the former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region in Africa? Can it state with any degree of certainty that bogus invoices and bogus contracts were not used on other occasions? Is the current ECHO affair an exception to the rule, or were there other similar cases?

The Commission stated that, in previous years, the company involved was awarded contracts worth almost one billion (Belgian) francs. Has an inquiry now been carried out in order to ascertain whether the other contracts which the Commission concluded with the company involved were executed in a regular manner?