The FPS Strategy and Support (BOSA) is not able to exercise sufficient control over the proper allocation of federal subsidies, according to a report presented to the House on Tuesday.
The resigning government had introduced, at the start of the legislature, “ spending reviews » to determine whether certain public expenditure was achieving its objective and whether it was possible to increase its effectiveness. Since last year, the exercise has applied to the entire federal budget. It is up to BOSA to ensure these controls.
In past years, the FPS has monitored the allocation of public resources to asylum and immigration services, justice and healthcare, but has also looked into the billions of euros in federal subsidies. Several problems are highlightedin particular the absence of a legal definition of a subsidy, endowment, donation or transfer. Structured data management is also lacking, which has made it difficult to identify a possible misuse or double payments.
Finally, few subsidies are accompanied by performance indicators and several federal departments suffer from a lack of capacitywhich means that the data could not always be provided. The working group responsible for these “spending reviews” considers that essential elements are missing to carry out a future effective control of the subsidy policy. He pleads for the creation of a interfederal register of subsidies.
The daily Het Laatste Nieuws reported on the “chaos” that would reign in the control of subsidies, citing figures from 66 billion euros the use of which would more or less escape any control. An assertion firmly contested by the resigning Secretary of State for the Budget, Alexia Bertrand. “A particularly distorted image,” she regretted. “To give you an idea, excluding social security, the federal government has an annual budget of 37 billion euros to finance its entire operation. Talking about subsidies for almost double is therefore a completely erroneous interpretation of the facts.”
According to the Secretary of State, the amount comes from 55 billion euros of internal transfers, of which almost 30 billion are allocations intended for social security. In addition, the amounts for 2023 and 2024 were incorrectly added, she said. Projects are “well and truly controlled before their approval and monitored after it”. “In this period of business as usual, pre-approval checks are even more rigorous,” she added.
