The sheer amount of money stolen by the Andalucian politicians over the last decade is immense. So far, we’re talking billions of euros, mainly of EU cash. Nobody seems to care very much, but it is a fairly enormous scandal.
Basically, for every euro the EU sent Andalucia over the last 20 years or so, the politicians seem to have happily, and with no real comeback, pocketed whatever percentage they wanted to.
Anyway, Carlos Cañavate, Director General of Formación Profesional para el Empleo and a senior Junta member has cracked under questioning by the financial crimes division of the Guardia Civil and admitted that as far as he knows, his department has stolen about 270 million euros worth of cash over the last few years in a new previously undetected fraud.
He added that from what he knows, his department was “small fry”.
The main theft seems to have been employment projects, which is why Andalucia has the highest unemployment rate in Europe (67% amongst under 30’s, for example).
Basically, there has never been any regulatory oversight into these training programmes. So the politician grants, for example, 100k for a training project in a some town, never actually trains anyone, stamps the degrees and pockets the cash. There are many ways.
The other main fraud, which is currently in the courts and which has implicated the last two presidents of Andalucia, is the ERE scandal, which involved giving fake pension entitlements to party friends. That alone was another billion euros so far.
The unions, by the way, seem to be up to their armpits in the scandals and were one of the main ways the money was funnelled out of the tax payers pocket.