TAE on the occasion of the EU debate about the report on the budgetary discharge 2013

Humanitarian help, yes, but it must not be wasted.
EU must ensure that the humanitarian help, paid for by the tax payers, reaches the people in need.

In times of EU-wide austerity policy and continuously rising refugee numbers (by now 50 million people worldwide) the EU hast to be able to guarantee that the humanitarian help provided by the tax payers actually reaches the people in need.

As the OLAF-report (OF 2003/526; Link: http://fr.slideshare.net/434HT121PPOL/jk45as912ws) clearly proves, EU relief supplies e.g. designated for the Tindouf camps in Algeria were misappropriated and offered on the markets of neighbouring countries or even sold to refugees for the personal gain of Sahrawi and Algerian people in charge instead of being distributed. Until the year 2003, when the report was commissioned, at least 105 million Euros in aids had flowed into this region. The annual EU-aid amounts to about 10 million Euros. It appears that this critical OLAF-report is supposed to be swept under the rug, says tax payers president, Rolf von Hohenhau.

In the budget committee of the European Parliament some delegates apparently inquired with the responsible EU commissioner, MEP Dr. Inge Grässle, among others, but she has so far not given answers to the two most important questions: Can the EU commission guarantee that the people responsible for those fraud cases no longer have access to EU means? Can the EU commission guarantee that registration will happen in the receiving countries, for - according to the European tax payers - OLAF and UN name the uncertainty of population numbers in the Tindouf camps as the main reason for the fraud cases.

In the opinion of the Taxpayers Association of Europe (TAE) these questions need to be answered and it needs to be ensured that the means made available actually reach the needy, before new humanitarian means are allocated.