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EURO
Profligacy and Fraud revealed.
TIMES Analysis
December 05, 2002
Business Editor's Commentary by Patience Wheatcroft
Go on Gordon, eat of the money tree
IT REALLY is a mystery why Gordon Brown is borrowing all that
money to
finance next yearıs public sector wage bill. We can quibble about
the need
for more ethnic minority outreach workers in Haringey or question
why the
Chancellor failed to notice that City bonuses were a bit slim
when he did
his tax revenue forecasts. But the real question is: why is he
planning to
borrow more when so much money is there for the taking?
He could have avoided all the cheap gibes and the smug ³I told
you so². He
could have walked into Parliament last week, with a grin on his
face and
prudence in his pocket. He could have done so, because if he had
looked, he
would have seen that the cash is there, big fat euro notes on
the branch,
ripe for picking.
Where is all this lovely money? Yesterday, the European Court
of Auditors
formally delivered to the European Parliament its report on the
European
Commissionıs finances in 2001. In 288 pages this explains how
the Commission
mismanages, mis-spends or simply fails to spend its budget of
E96 billion.
The report goes into some detail about the inadequacies of the
Commissionıs
accounting systems. As a result the court could not give a blanket
statement
of assurance that the Commissionıs accounts are true and fair.
Indeed, it
could not even say as much for most of the accounts. In fact,
the auditors
had so many unanswered queries over agriculture subsidy payments
and the
structural funds that 80 per cent of the Commissionıs budget spending
has a
question mark over it.
It is a tale of fictitious olive mills in Greece and Spain, of
payments for
invisible cows in Britain and the extraordinary matter of virtual
Austria.
Somewhere, in an alternative universe, Julie Andrews is singing
as she runs
through an extra 60 per cent of glorious alpine pasture. The scam,
in which
acreage eligible for payments was increased by more than half,
was
discovered through examination of aerial photographs of the landscape.
Something must be done. However, that could take time, a lot of
time.
Meanwhile, Mr Brown should demand his share of the spoils.
The big revelation is that the Commission did not spend E15 billion
it
received last year. What became of it? Out of the E540 million
Sapard
programme for EU candidate countries (those planning to join the
EU) only
E30 million was transferred to the candidate states and only E1
million was
paid to the intended beneficiaries. ³If the pace of implementation
does not
pick up,² say the auditors, ³appropriation will have to be cancelled
in
2003.ıı
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Clannasaor says: And the SNP want us to join this monopoly currency?
NO WAY!