Brussels, 19/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - Gilles Pargneaux MEP (S&D, France) has returned to the case of suspected European food aid fraud to Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf, Algeria (see EUROPE 11243 and 11245). He has recently addressed the question to the European Commission and OLAF requesting the exact reasons “for not publishing this report when it was finalised in 2007?”
Pargneaux is also the president of the EU-Morocco friendship group at EP and asserted that “the conclusions from this report demonstrate the large-scale misappropriation of this aid”. He pointed out that Parliament had only just consulted it “in January 2015, eight years after it was drafted”. He asked when OLAF intended to “publish an official version including the totality of information recovered during the investigation?” He also asked “to what extent has DG ECHO (humanitarian aid, Ed) applied OLAF's recommendations, particularly those advocating the exclusion of the people known to have been involved in managing the programme?” (Fathi B'Chir)