 THE anti-fraud team who carried out an investigation into the £15m European-funded Rope Walks Partnership in Liverpool decided last summer to bring their inquiries to an end, it emerged yesterday. But their own chiefs in Brussels only ratified that decision this month, closing the book on all investigations into the scheme. Last night, Liverpool Labour leader Joe Anderson expressed anger at the wasted six months. He said: "We have been pleading with the EU to announce their findings after waiting five years for a conclusion into a number of very serious concerns that I first raised in 1999. "The EU has known because of regular communications from me and MEP Arlene McCarthy that there was grave concern about the time it was taking to announce any findings. "For an investigation to take years is bad enough, but then to sit on the findings for a further six months is unacceptable. We could have been told as early as last July that the matter was not going to be taken any further. It shows that the bureaucrats in Europe treat people with such disrespect if they think they can announce things when it suits them. "It is not as though the anti-fraud team, OLAF, were not aware that we were screaming for an answer to the investigation. "If people like Arlene McCarthy and myself are treated so badly by officials in Brussels is it any wonder that EU officials lack credibility in the eyes of ordinary people." Mrs McCarthy, one of the North West's Labour MEPs, is also to ask OLAF officials why they sat on the matter for six months. She also wants OLAF or the EU to spell out publicly what lessons have been learned from the exhaustive inquiry into the conduct of the Rope Walks Partnership. The Daily Post revealed yesterday how OLAF, in just one sentence, announced to Mrs McCarthy that the Rope Walks investigation had been ended with no evidence found of any wrongdoing. There has been no explanation about how the decision was reached. The investigation started in January 2000 after allegations of mis-management at Rope Walks. Cllr Anderson, who was a board member at the time, resigned and his complaints prompted the anti-fraud team to move in. He had expressed concerns that some colleagues on the board may have had a conflict of interest when Objective 1 funding was being shared out. OLAF's Director General Franz-Hermann Bruener said in a letter to Mrs McCarthy: "While we share your view that investigations should be concluded as quickly as possible, it is not always possible to act expediently in complex cases. The duration of an investigation cannot be the sole criteria for appreciating the effectiveness and competence of an organisation." Mr Bruener added that the EU Commission's view was that OLAF needed to be seen as a pillar of trust. "Be assured that we are working hard every day to protect EU financial interests and improve the public perception of the way EU money is managed," he said. larryneild@dailypost.co.uk | 
News RSS Feed