Surprise, Surprise, Corruption

In a move that demonstrates the lack of equal access to taxpayers money, some of the beneficiaries of the European Unions poor accounting and control are no longer able to eat from the trough.

A criminal gang of professionals and academics led by a Sicilian professor defrauded the European Union of millions of pounds in a fake youth training programme, Italian police claimed yesterday after a string of dawn raids across the country. Police seized a total of 39 bank accounts and GBP 3.5 million, as well as tracing other illegally obtained funding to offshore companies based in tax havens. Police claim that up to GBP 13 million had been creamed off.

Shocking is it not. You could subsidise 25.000 cows for that money. It would pay the expenses of a handful of MEPs or could even contribute toward a summit on something or other.

Seeing as free money always leads to corruption, the only way to stop this happening is to stop doling out the cash. To say nothing of changing the culture in the echelons of power. After all, sacking whistleblowers is not normally the most effective way to spread the anti corruption message.