Brussels, 30/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini told the European Parliament's budgets committee last week that a report did indeed exist that had been kept secret for eight years on the embezzlement of aid to Saharans.
The affair clearly seems to raise questions as to what would constitute just “simple” humanitarian aid fraud, which could nevertheless have diplomatic reverberations. Related questions also arise - especially knowing what to do with the OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) reports, and having to inform the European Parliament. Eight years were needed for the Parliament to be informed of an anti-fraud report, even if OLAF's right to classify its reports is not denied.
The OLAF report focuses on the embezzlement of aid to Saharan refugees in the Tindouf camp (Algeria). It noted that the fraud took place and established who was responsible. Ordered in 2004, the report was completed in 2007 - but was kept quiet by the European Commission. The secret was kept for “diplomatic” reasons, to quote the term used by the staff of Gilles Pargneaux MEP (S&D, France), the head of the EU-Morocco friendship group. The Commission was reportedly concerned not to interfere in the dispute between Morocco and Algeria - a dispute in which European diplomacy remains cautious, carefully falling in behind UN resolutions. The issue is to determine the number of refugees to be helped, and thus the census of the Saharan people is the heart of the diplomatic challenge in the area.
Mogherini told the European Parliament's budgets committee that this report did indeed exist and she authorised it to be sent to MEPs. The MEPs, however, only apparently received an “edited” version, in which the names of the suspected organisations and people are hidden. Pargneaux says that he has already “asked written questions” but only received a response giving assurances that the situation was now under control. In its response two years ago, the Commission gave assurances that “the conclusions of the last investigations (…) did not give rise to any request for the recovery of funds, nor did they require any judicial or administrative procedure to be undertaken”. Yet it was representatives from the humanitarian aid DG at the Commission that were supervising the operations.
“I'm pleased that this political pressure from the EU-Morocco friendship group has contributed to bringing a file out into the public that has been blocked by OLAF since 2007”, Pargneaux stated. The fraud is said to concern the count of the number of people to be helped and the re-sale of the aid obtained. “People need to be aware that it is the over-count of the people in the Tindouf camps that has enabled this elaborate system of embezzlement and resale of European food aid to be established.”
“I will ask the budgetary control committee to throw complete light on what I believe to be a shameful manipulation. It is time for Europe to demand this census in order to avoid fraud, and especially to give fresh impetus to settling the Sahara conflict. Europe cannot provide funds blindly and silently to the Sahara. There is an opportunity right now for the European Parliament to put forward the important points of contortion in the Western Sahara conflict”, Pargneaux stated.
The EU could thus be involved in a diplomatic confrontation going on between Rabat and Algiers. Unofficial comments in Algiers put the current revelations down to an offensive ahead of a UN examination of the issue. In addition, suspicions about European figures, policies and media, as well as MEPs mentioned specifically by name, abound in the pages of the Algerian press, which is reportedly under the influence of Rabat. (FB)