For 19th year in a row, the EU fails to have it's accounts signed off
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-EU-funds.html
British taxpayers liable for £800m of misspent EU funds
British taxpayers are liable for over £800 million of misspent EU funds as Brussels error rate increases by 23 per cen
Quote:
Originally Posted by Telegraph
Almost £6 billion in European Union spending was paid out in “error” last year meaning that Brussels payments to ineligible projects have increased by almost a quarter, Europe’s official auditors have found.
The share of the £5.7 billion in misspent cash that British taxpayers are liable for is as high as £832 million at time of deep public spending cuts domestically.
Failing to give the EU’s accounts for 2012 a clean bill of health for the 19th year in a row, the European Court Auditors (ECA) on Tuesday warned that the error rate in spending had increased from 3.9 per cent to 4.8 per cent.
The EU spending watchdog found that supervision and control of Brussels spending worth £117 billion (€138.6bn) was only “partially effective in ensuring the legality and regularity of payments underlying the accounts”.
“All policy groups covering operational expenditure are materially affected by error,” the auditors concluded.
Philip Bradbourn MEP, the Conservative spokesman on EU budgetary control, described the latest audit as “another year, another story of lax monitoring and shambolic control”.
“If you found misappropriation and misspending on this scale in a commercial business – or in a properly-accountable public administration – there would be sackings all round. In Brussels, it's 'Carry on Squandering',” he said.
“For these reasons it is the ECA’s opinion that payments underlying the accounts are materially affected by error.”
Auditors found that the error rate in EU rural spending had increased by 7.9 per cent to €1.2 billion of a €15bn budget, the worst hit expenditure area. That figure rose to 63 per cent of projects that were directly audited by the watchdog.
EU regional policy spending had an error rate of 6.8 per cent or €2.8bn of a €40.7bn spent in 2012, a figure that rose to 49 per cent of directly audited projects.
Vitor Caldeira, the president of the ECA, criticised the European Commission for its planning of spending and warned that a backlog of project bills “will put added pressure on EU cash flows and may increase the risk of error over the next few years”.
“Europe’s citizens have a right to know what their money is being spent on and whether it is being used properly,” he said.
“They also have a right to know whether it is delivering value, particularly at a time when there is such pressure on public finances.”
Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, said: “It is about time the peoples of Europe were able to get this EU albatross off their backs, or at least out of their pockets."
Been reporting this story for a few years and now we're upto 19 years.
Corruption, plain and simple.
Thoughts?
