Auditors uncover expenses fiddle

Date: 25/09/1997

THE EU's Economic and Social Committee has come under fire from the Union's financial watchdog after an investigation revealed a high level of “unwarranted expenses claims” by members.

Officials from the Court of Auditors who investigated a three-month period last year have discovered that 69&percent; of airline tickets - worth approximately 330,000 ecu - were wrongly reimbursed.

In a preliminary report on its findings, the Court says that ESC members claimed for more expensive plane tickets than those they actually bought. It also says that in some instances Committee members received attendance allowances when they were not present at plenary sessions.

ESC president Tom Jenkins has challenged the auditors' figures, insisting the 69&percent; related to a small, unrepresentative sample of members and claiming that an investigation later in 1996 by the Court showed that only 3&percent; of tickets for 1.8&percent; of members were not valid.

But he acknowledged that some ESC members had acted in the belief that the Committee's rules entitled them to be reimbursed for Club Class travel even when they used cheaper tickets.

“These practices are unacceptable. We have changed our rules and procedures to ensure that they will not be repeated and we are recovering the payments wrongly advanced,” he said.

In 1995, an investigation by the Court uncovered evidence that incorrect expense claims were submitted for 60&percent; of air tickets over a two-month period.

The report states that measures introduced last year to tackle the problem had only had a “limited impact” and that the level of unjustified expense claims continued to be “significant”.

Jenkins admitted that the new procedures might “take time to filter through”, but said he was “determined” to get the number of unjustified expenses down to zero. “We now have a system where members have to show their boarding passes to get reimbursed,” he said.

In the same report, the Court puts the proportion of incorrect travel expense claims by members of the ESC's sister body, the Committee of the Regions (CoR), at 3&percent;.

Both organisations will have time to give a formal response to the results of the Court's investigations before its definitive report is published in November.