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The claims had been handed on to EU anti-fraud investigator OLAF, which began its personal probe. (POLITICO and Welt, each owned by Axel Springer, aren’t naming the journey company for authorized causes.)
Regardless of the warning indicators, nonetheless, Frontex put out a brand new request for tenders in December 2022 and a brand new contract was awarded to the identical Polish journey company in 2023 to assist handle the establishment’s €526 million journey price range.
An inner Frontex doc reviewed by Welt and POLITICO reveals that the contract was awarded as a result of different suppliers that participated within the bid for tenders couldn’t supply comparable companies. However the doc makes no point out of the investigations.
It was solely after Frontex’s authorized division carried out its personal investigation into the journey company, recommending the contract’s withdrawal in November 2023, that Govt Director Leijtens signed a so-called “non-approval discover,” which cancelled the contract in addition to the complete bidding course of.
“The monetary regulation [of the EU] obliges us to do that (cancel the contract) when the irregularities are blatant,” one of many inner paperwork reads.
It stays unclear who at Frontex took the choice to award the contract regardless of the continuing investigations and claims of fraudulent exercise.
Leijtens grew to become Frontex’s government director in March 2023, succeeding Fabrice Leggeri, who resigned from the company in April 2022.
Frontex didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark from POLITICO and Welt. The Polish journey company declined to remark for this text.
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