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INPRIMATU
99% of recipients of social assistance do not commit fraud
  • The Provincial Council of Bizkaia launched last year the General Plan for the Supervision and Control of Social Services and Benefits 2017-2019, a system for detecting fraud in social assistance, and the General Manager, Unai Rementeria, reported on the plan on Tuesday.  
Maddi Txintxurreta @mtxintxurreta 2018ko maiatzaren 23a
Unai Rementeria ahaldun nagusia eta Isabel Sanchez Robles Gizarte Ekintza diputatua

According to Rementeria, the General Plan was created "at the request of society". The plan now shows that fraud is virtually non-existent in the area of social assistance. It is only 1%, "very small", as Rementeria herself has said: "99% of the money we distribute has been used properly. In addition, the problem has been that we have not been informed that their situation has changed. You can't say they were planning to cheat."

A total of EUR 1.4 million in social service benefits and grants has been fraudulent, and the Parliament has requested that this amount be reimbursed to the beneficiaries. Rementeria mentions other cases of fraud, such as the one related to the Treasury, and mentions that in this area the fraud was estimated at 477.5 million euros.

Isabel Sánchez Robles, MP for Social Action, provides detailed data: among the 23,785 benefits analyzed, one third are “disability benefits” and two thirds are dependent benefits. In both areas, 91.3 million have been distributed and only 1.4 million have been claimed (about 2%).

Sánchez also provides data on the support received by agents and associations. The aid of 24.3 miles has been analysed and a total of 0.2% fraud has been detected.

On the other hand, only 31 of the 299 centres that offer their services in Bizkaia have found errors.