The Emperor’s New Clothes
16/06/2013 - 11:44am
The most worrying aspect about the OLAF investigations into the John Dalli case are the insights it allows into the inefficient work of the Office under its Director General. Listening to him and to the Supervisory Committee one gets the impression that the investigation concerning Dalli is ‘OLAF at its best’.
The investigational activities into the case have bound a lot of resource input - even to the point of overexcitement. Let’s have a look at OLAF’s annual report 2013 (page 21): Leaving the Dalli case aside, statistically, OLAF has conducted one out of every twenty cases by interview with a person concerned and one out of 12 cases with a witness. Yet, in the Dalli case five interviews with persons concerned (7,5% of all interviews conducted with persons concerned) and six with witnesses (5,5% of all interviews conducted with witness) had been conducted.
The outcome of the investigation, though, was not sufficient for the opening of a judicial follow-up. But still, Europe remains puzzled about why the Commissioner had to leave?
The defamation complaint will follow and the tax payer will receive the bill for the mess that this investigation has caused. Whereas the Office was looking for evidence in vain, the files about presumed fraud with EU money continued to rot in the OLAF basement - the other 11 cases where no interview is conducted with a witness or the other 19 cases where no interview is conducted with a person concerned.
Another point is about 31 January, 2013. Where 423 cases were opened and of which 221 were closed again afterwards. This reminds me of an MTV show under a new title: Pimp my statistics! If one looks a little closer at the reported numbers I am worried about the meagre output: only in 21.5% of all closed cases has OLAF issued recommendations.
If we deduct the one-time effect of the 221 closed investigations only in 41% of all closed cases has OLAF issued a recommendation. By the way: the lowest record of cases that are followed-up in the history of the Office.
And another point that is worrying, OLAF has introduced sector specific thresholds so that it does not have to care about every single case it receives.
This is forcing the spending Directorate Generals of the Commission to follow-up on cases on their own. This leads to a return to the - until now presumed buried - structure of UCLAF.
The independence and integrity of the anti-fraud policy is at stake. Already the appearance of an OLAF that receives instructions or orders from the institutions under investigation is doomed to carve the integrity capital of the Office and institutions of the European Union.
Another thing that is shocking to me: Like Steve Jobs in his best days, the Commission’s officials ran around in the last couple of months - before the leaking the OLAF report - announcing the ‘Next Big Thing’ that will be revealed in the Dalli saga which will be dooming for all those which also apparently presumed Dalli’s innocence unless proven otherwise. And yet, even after the revelation of the OLAF report one is still waiting for the ‘Next Big Thing’.
This strategy hindered the declaration of solidarity with Dalli. Nobody wants to defend a possible corrupt person. Also people participated in this strategy, from whom I would never have expected such unethical behaviour.
The same people continue to pretend to admire the most beautiful garments spun with unambiguous circumstantial evidence by our ‘emperor’, himself, whereas everybody sees that he is unpleasantly naked. europe on line
The investigational activities into the case have bound a lot of resource input - even to the point of overexcitement. Let’s have a look at OLAF’s annual report 2013 (page 21): Leaving the Dalli case aside, statistically, OLAF has conducted one out of every twenty cases by interview with a person concerned and one out of 12 cases with a witness. Yet, in the Dalli case five interviews with persons concerned (7,5% of all interviews conducted with persons concerned) and six with witnesses (5,5% of all interviews conducted with witness) had been conducted.
The outcome of the investigation, though, was not sufficient for the opening of a judicial follow-up. But still, Europe remains puzzled about why the Commissioner had to leave?
The defamation complaint will follow and the tax payer will receive the bill for the mess that this investigation has caused. Whereas the Office was looking for evidence in vain, the files about presumed fraud with EU money continued to rot in the OLAF basement - the other 11 cases where no interview is conducted with a witness or the other 19 cases where no interview is conducted with a person concerned.
Another point is about 31 January, 2013. Where 423 cases were opened and of which 221 were closed again afterwards. This reminds me of an MTV show under a new title: Pimp my statistics! If one looks a little closer at the reported numbers I am worried about the meagre output: only in 21.5% of all closed cases has OLAF issued recommendations.
If we deduct the one-time effect of the 221 closed investigations only in 41% of all closed cases has OLAF issued a recommendation. By the way: the lowest record of cases that are followed-up in the history of the Office.
And another point that is worrying, OLAF has introduced sector specific thresholds so that it does not have to care about every single case it receives.
This is forcing the spending Directorate Generals of the Commission to follow-up on cases on their own. This leads to a return to the - until now presumed buried - structure of UCLAF.
The independence and integrity of the anti-fraud policy is at stake. Already the appearance of an OLAF that receives instructions or orders from the institutions under investigation is doomed to carve the integrity capital of the Office and institutions of the European Union.
Another thing that is shocking to me: Like Steve Jobs in his best days, the Commission’s officials ran around in the last couple of months - before the leaking the OLAF report - announcing the ‘Next Big Thing’ that will be revealed in the Dalli saga which will be dooming for all those which also apparently presumed Dalli’s innocence unless proven otherwise. And yet, even after the revelation of the OLAF report one is still waiting for the ‘Next Big Thing’.
This strategy hindered the declaration of solidarity with Dalli. Nobody wants to defend a possible corrupt person. Also people participated in this strategy, from whom I would never have expected such unethical behaviour.
The same people continue to pretend to admire the most beautiful garments spun with unambiguous circumstantial evidence by our ‘emperor’, himself, whereas everybody sees that he is unpleasantly naked. europe on line
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