- The Income Guarantee Income Act, approved in March by the Basque Government, has implemented one of the measures provided for in it: Control Unit comprising 19 inspectors within Lanbide. The law is stigmatizing the poor in a service where there is hardly any fraud, according to various agents.
Lanbide stressed that the tasks of the inspectors are to exercise internal control, to monitor and cooperate in the fulfilment of the obligations of the aid receiving the benefits or to detect irregularities. Lanbide has underlined that, in this legislature, permanent cooperation has been established with the Ertzaintza and the Prosecutor’s Office.
In the words of the director of Social Benefits and Inclusion, Sara Buesa, "those of us who believe in our model of protection and inclusion know that it has a lot of prestige, not only the one who has to get help, but also manage it rigorously. This Unit and this Plan has been created to help people understand and fulfil their obligations to ensure that management is guaranteed for people, and to ensure that public resources are managed rigorously".
"Despite the fact that fraud is only 0.7% among recipients of this economic benefit, it is a message that is socialized "if they are checked for something".
"Poverty is criminalizing"
The new law was passed among the criticisms last March. Iñaki Uribarri Argilan, a member of ARGIA, spoke hard about this unit that represents an increase in control in particular: "The people who receive the IGR, despite their right, are treated perversely, and although the fraud among those who receive this economic benefit is only 0.7%, it is a message that is socialized "if they are checked for something". Tax fraud is 20% and tax inspection is much lower, and every inspection case is properly justified. Being poor seems to be a crime."
According to Uribarri, "the new law introduces improvements in some conditions, but in terms of fraud control, it is worse than the law of 2018, very tough, what comes is barbaric. The way the PNV responds to right-wing messages like ‘Donate Money to Migrants’ is to increase control, but it is ultimately to obey the right to the detriment of rights and social justice. The poor do not vote and are an easy goal, besides no one defends them, there is no social conscience".
Along the same lines, the Berri Otxoak platform, the LAB syndicate and other agents denounced the criminalization and stigmatization of the poor made by the institutions when the new law was passed.