2023-10-11 14:16:00
By Julien Da Sois
Published 36 minutes ago, Updated 14 minutes ago
This figure “must however be considered as a minimum”, writes Pierre Moscovici in a letter to Élisabeth Borne. ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
The work of the Court of Auditors highlighted “a significant number of duplicates” in the payment of this aid of 100 euros, estimated at 1.7 million beneficiaries.
On October 21, 2021, faced with soaring energy and fuel prices, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced, on TF1’s 8 p.m.inflation compensation» of 100 euros to the 38 million French people earning less than 2,000 euros net per month. With the clearly stated principle that this aid is received only once per person. More than a year and a half later, the Court of Auditors has just slapped the government on the wrist for… non-compliance with this rule.
«It appears from the Court’s work that the arrangements made for the payment of inflation compensation did not ensure compliance with the principle of payment of a single aid to each beneficiary», writes the first president of the financial jurisdiction Pierre Moscovici, in a letter addressed in July to Élisabeth Borne, successor to Jean Castex at Matignon, and made public this Wednesday. In detail, the Sages observed “a significant number of duplicates», estimated at 1.7 million French people (or 4.4% of the total number of beneficiaries), for an unduly paid amount of around 170 million euros. As a reminder, this measure was initially expected to represent a cost of 3.8 billion euros for the State.
The costing of the Court of Auditors “must however be considered as a minimum», writes Pierre Moscovici, given that the study of the payments “does not include all payments“. Worse, these sums cannot be recovered by the State. “While social security organizations are the main payers of inflation compensation, the text (of the decree, editor’s note) does not provide that they can notify and recover overpayments.», Regrets the Court of Auditors. It was in fact the beneficiaries who were responsible for paying back the undue sums. “On this voluntary and spontaneous basis, only 791,500 euros were recovered by the DGFiP (General Directorate of Public Finances, Editor’s note), or around 0.5% of the amount of estimated duplicates.», notes Pierre Moscovici.
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Avoid repeating the same mistakes
And the Court of Auditors pushed the government a little further, pointing out that such duplication was predictable. “The very design of the inflation bonus system exposed (…) the risk of multiple payments since the same person falling under several statuses simultaneously (employee, self-employed, beneficiary of social benefits, student, etc.) was de facto responsible to several paying organizations (employer, social security funds, etc.)», underlines the first president of the institution. At the time, the executive had justified the principle of payment “automatic» of this aid by its desire to avoid creating a “Gaz factory».
For the Court of Auditors, if it is too late to correct the errors made in the design of the inflation compensation, it must serve as an example, for the future, of what not to do. In the event that such exceptional financial assistance is decided once more, the Sages recommend providing “the terms of data exchange between all the organizations concerned by the implementation of the compensation», as well as a clear legal framework to control the payment of aid and the recovery of sums unduly paid. They also insist on the need for simplification, confiding “responsibility for the allocation, payment, control and recovery of overdue payments to a single national body“. At the risk of further waste of public money.
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