En echoing the requirement for sound management of public funds and knowing that the granting of social assistance by the CPAS of Anderlecht is in principle reserved for people who are domiciled in our territory following a police investigation, all light must be made on possible dysfunctions in the management of certain individual files,” said the socialist mayor of Anderlecht, Fabrice Cumps, on Wednesday.
He thus responds to the broadcast, Tuesday evening, of a report by the VRT reporting suspicions of undue granting of integration income by the CPAS of the municipality, obviously due to lack of control. The subject has already provoked several reactions, notably from the MR and the N-VA according to whom the problem occurs in other Brussels CPAS.
Social services in difficulty
Highlighting the difficulties faced by the social services of the CPAS in Anderlecht – the third poorest municipality in Belgium – Fabrice Cumps would like to “salute the teams of social workers who in the vast majority do serious work and quality” in particularly complicated circumstances, we can read in a press release. “The situation is made even more difficult on the ground by the concentration in our territory of reception structures for vulnerable people, which the mayor constantly asks for to be better distributed,” adds the text, recalling that different organizational measures have been taken very recently.
A new administrative building was opened, social workers were recruited and an ombudsman was hired. An emergency plan was also approved to respond to the need to speed up processing times for individual files “in strict compliance with the regulatory context”, according to the mayor. The latter “finally warns of the state of tension between the human and material resources available to the Anderlecht CPAS in relation to the needs”. Therefore, he continues: “Any possible federal measures aimed at shifting the burden of supporting users excluded from unemployment to the CPAS would mean – neither more nor less – a total paralysis of our local social services. »
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Abuses within the Anderlecht CPAS revealed: “I am really shocked”, reacts the alderman
In this context, Fabrice Cumps “urges federal negotiators to renounce all forms of cynicism and to show resolute solidarity with the cities and towns of Brussels faced with an unprecedented succession of crises”.
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