Accountant ‘subordinated’ says Court of Auditors

Date: 19/09/02

By David Cronin

THE European Court of Auditors has accused the Commission of reducing the role of its chief accountant - a post held earlier this year by whistleblower Marta Andreasen - to that of an 'authorised record-keeper'.

Although the rules covering the accounting officer's work state he or she should have functional independence, the auditors find that in reality the post has been 'subordinated within the organisational structure' of the budget directorate-general.

The EU's financial watchdog also finds that the accounting officer has only a 'passing influence' on the bookkeeping systems used by the Commission's various services to manage the Union's €98 billion budget. The lack of an adequate centralised system has resulted in a 'profusion of local systems', they add, and 'the reconciliation of data contained between the local and 'central' systems is sporadic'.

The auditors' comments were sent to Jean-Paul Mingasson, then head of DG Budget, in February, but have not been published until now.

The remarks mirror complaints raised by Andreasen, who has been suspended from the Commission after claiming that Sincom, its computer-based accounting system, is 'vulnerable to fraud'.

'The Commission's accounting systems are too piecemeal for comfort,' say the auditors.

'[They] do not in reality represent double entry bookkeeping and therefore are fragile in their reliability for both management and accountability purposes.'

Among the deficiencies the auditors identify are:

• The accounts do not have sufficient information about firms or individuals awarded contracts;
• There is no central register of bank guarantees;
• The level of security applying to data stored by Sincom is 'poor', and;
• The effectiveness of the technology on which the accounting system is based has not been subject to 'adequate independent review'.

Furthermore, the auditors find that within DG Budget the number of trained accounting staff with the highest-level 'A' grade rank is 'insufficient to constitute a viable team to service [the] accounting needs of the Commission'.

Many of the staff dealing with accounting issues, it finds, are recruited at only 'B' grade level.

And they pinpoint concerns with the separate accounting systems used by the Commission's offices outside the EU. These delegations, say the auditors, use Excel software for their accounting purposes and have not been given sufficient information about how financial data should be managed.

Meanwhile, Andreasen disclosed yesterday (18 September) that she has been taking legal advice over comments made about her by Commissioners Neil Kinnock and Michaele Schreyer, which she considers defamatory.

However, her lawyers believe she is hampered from suing the commissioners because they enjoy immunity from prosecution.

Addressing a meeting hosted by the International Federation of Journalists, she said: 'While Ms Schreyer, Mr Kinnock and his spokesman have publicly denigrated my professionalism and personality to justify my removal from the post [of accounting officer], they have denied me the opportunity to defend myself in public. The Commission's staff regulations provide for the Commission to defend its officers from this public denigration. I have addressed my request for protection under article 24 of the staff regulations but have never received any response.'

Kinnock's spokesman Eric Mamer said: 'This seems an odd comment since she [Andreasen] is the one who went public with allegations against the Commission.

'We have asked her to substantiate these allegations but to no avail.'

MEP Jens-Peter Bonde yesterday argued that the Commission's accounting system is 'facilitating waste and fraud and it would be a criminal offence for a simple shop owner to run his book-keeping in that way.'

The Danish deputy, head of the Group for Democracies and Diversities in the European Parliament, has written to the assembly's president, Pat Cox, suggesting that the Parliament should request that the Commission delivers a full set of financial declarations from each head of its directorates-general, along with copies of correspondence between them and the Court of Auditors .

The European Court of Auditors has accused the European Commission of reducing the role of its chief accountant - a post held earlier this year by whistleblower Marta Andreasen - to that of an 'authorised record-keeper'.