In addition to her position as Managing Director of Libramont Cooperalia, the company organizing the event, Natacha Perat also works as a consultant for the same entity. For her consultancy assignments, the bio-engineer invoices her services via Sylvagri Consult, a company established in the Grand-Guché of Luxembourg in which she is a minority shareholder. Natacha Perat ensures that these two contracts cost, in total, less than 200,000 euros per year to her employer.
Upon discovering this, the finance inspectorate alerted the government. Because it feels bad to receive, on the one hand, Walloon public support and to consume, on the other, part of this envelope by invoicing via Luxembourg.
Several conditions have thus been imposed in return for the granting of the 2022 subsidy – 853,000 euros – by the Walloon government: the company Libramont Cooperalia must end its relationship with “Sylvagri”; Sogepa – one of the financial arms of the Walloon Region – is responsible for carrying out a study to verify the economic viability of the Fair model and the government has instructed the finance inspectorate to verify that the Walloon subsidy is used properly wisely.