Tory MEP denounces £11,000 a day of EU aid misspent by north-east officials - and still nobody takes the blame
Posted, March 31, 2009 @ 12:00
Heads should roll in Government Office North East, says Martin Callanan
NEWCASTLE, 31 March 2009 – Resignations at Government Office North East (GONE) should follow today’s news that ministers have agreed a humiliating deal with the European Commission to pay back nearly £8m of EU regional aid misspent by north-east officials in just two years, local Conservative MEP Martin Callanan said today.
Mr Callanan said that local residents deserved answers as to why a European Commission audit found poor record-keeping, ineligible expenditure and errors in projects carried out by regional officials during the period 1997-1999.
The amount identified as misspent during the two-year period was £7.8m at today’s exchange rates, a staggering amount of nearly £11,000 a day.
The embarrassment at GONE was compounded by news that the Commission reduced its original demand for a ‘financial correction’ by 90 per cent after ministers pleaded with EU officials.
That means the original amount misspent in just two years could have been closer to £80m.
Mr Callanan will be writing to the Europe minister Caroline Flint to ask for more details about the negotiations with the European Commission, and specifically to ask if the reduction in the Commission’s demand for a ‘financial correction’ will impact negatively on EU development aid for the north-east in the future.
The Commission stated in a press release: "The Commission audited a random sample of projects in the north-east. The high frequency and type of errors detected showed that the management and control systems applied by the UK authorities had not functioned effectively, resulting in a high risk of ineligible expenditure declared to the Commission."
Mr Callanan said:
"We’ve known for some time about the incompetence and maladministration within GONE but this deal makes it clear for all to see.
"I know all this happened more than ten years ago but there are undoubtedly officials still at GONE who were there at the time.
"It’s about time we had answers.
"The people responsible should be named and shamed, and if they are still working at GONE they should be fired or asked to resign.
"Local people will be rightly outraged that the government has had to pay back money intended as development aid for the region because local officials made such a monumental cock-up.
"It’s bad enough that government officials in the region misspent nearly £11,000 a day but the real figure could be up to ten times that.
"The government has had to crawling to the European Commission to dig its own regional officials out of a hole.
"I want to know what effect this will have on future EU regional aid allocations, and whether ministers bargained away what’s rightfully ours to spare their blushes.