2023-08-14 06:58:16
An official of the FPS Finances who had defrauded the government of more than 5 million euros is authorized to return to work. This is reported The last news Monday, following an internal investigation.
The man held a leadership position in the trade union organization NUOD, where he and his colleagues falsified membership numbers in order to obtain more subsidies. To do this, he made money transfers from different post offices with other members of the union. Members also withdrew cash from accounts and redeposited it in so-called transit accounts, with the names of new members in the description.
After a union member raised the issue with the boss of the FPS Finances, the court opened an investigation. Thanks to the union’s bank data, the investigators were able to ascertain that hundreds of transfers had been made and that there were allegedly 2,835 members, instead of 1,940 in reality.
The Antwerp court prosecuted eight members of NUOD Finance and an underlying non-profit organization used to pay union bonuses. They were found guilty of forgery and fraud. According to the prosecution, nearly 1.5 million euros in wages were paid to permanent union representatives and more than 3 million euros were collected through union exemptions enjoyed by members. Subsidies fraud worth 440,000 euros was also allegedly committed. In 2021, five of the eight trade unionists were found guilty, three of whom received 15-month suspended prison sentences. On appeal, the prison sentence was reduced to a one-year suspended sentence.
Most trade unionists are now retired, two of them are even deceased. But one of the suspended convicts was fired by the SPF. He took this decision to the Council of State, which recently ruled in his favor. The Board ruled that the dismissal was unjustified because the correct procedure had not been followed.
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