The EU anti-fraud office (OLAF) is considered a “pillar of trust” by the vast majority of the European Commission’s staff, at least according to Franz-Hermann Bruner, OLAF’s director.
Indeed, as the EU Observer reports, the anti-fraud office has been active at recovering misspent EU funds.
The anti-fraud unit employed a total of 467 staff in 2007 on a budget of €72.6 million, up from 388 people on €67.5 million the year before. It recovered €204 million mis-spent EU funds, compared to just €114 million in 2006, with the average length of investigations creeping up from 27 months to 28 months per case.
That’s a return on investment of 131.4 million euros. Not bad. And in the process, it sets a good example and hopefully a deterrent against corruption. It may even answer the question posed by Jon Worth here.
