Brussels, (Brussels Morning)- The municipality of Anderlecht had to cancel planned income for 18 million euros this year at the request of the regional guardians. This concerns debts incurred before 2016, such as unpaid parking fines or municipal taxes. The local N-VA requests an external audit, but according to the region this is not necessary. “The situation is not exceptional.”
This is apparent from a letter from Minister of Local Authorities Bernard Clerfayt (Défi) to the Anderlecht municipal council in January this year, which N-VA councillor Gilles Verstraeten received. The letter reads “that a major clean-up should be done in the outstanding receivables.” The letter is still about the bill for the 2020 service year, so two years ago.
At the end of 2020, the municipality was still waiting for more than 91 million euros in outstanding payments, the regional guardianship calculated at the time. “Of which, according to this analysis, the claims up to 2016, which represent an amount of approximately 18 million euros, are largely lost,” it can be read.
The same letter warns about lost invoices, “a recurring problem” in Anderlecht. The Buildings Department, in particular, is getting a slap on the wrist. For example, he would have sold a building without closing the counters. A water leak resulted in unnecessary expenses. Energy contracts are also said to have been followed up carelessly. It is not clear which building is involved.
Opposition member Gilles Verstraeten complains about mismanagement by mayor Fabrice Cumps (PS), who was responsible for municipal finances from 2006 to last month. “These documents show that there has been structural and far-reaching mismanagement in Anderlecht’s finances for years,” says Verstraeten, who immediately asks for Cumps’ resignation. He calls it “hallucinatory” that the current municipal budget increases certain taxes (such as on offices, second homes and advertising printing, ed.), while according to him the deficit could be filled with the lost payments. Verstraeten wants a full, external audit of Anderlecht’s municipal services.
Taxes and parking fines
Anderlecht alderman for Finance Elke Roex (Vooruit), who recently took over the authority from Mayor Cumps, says that the problem has been worked on for some time. “The clean-up has been going on for a while and was started by Fabrice Cumps, not myself,” says Roex. “Every year there are revenues that we sign up for, but we find we’re never going to get them.” She gives as an example arrears of payments from parents at daycare centres or rent for social housing. There are also council taxes that are not collected because residents dispute them. Or it may concern subsidies that are not fully paid out, for example because a construction site took longer than anticipated. “It is a technical, administrative process that takes place in every municipality,” says Alderman Roex.
The regional guardianship confirms that the problem is not unique. “All municipalities have outstanding debts, even if they are higher in Anderlecht,” said spokeswoman Pauline Lorbat of competent minister Clerfayt. “The situation is not exceptional at this stage.” According to the BRUZZ, the municipality has mainly missed taxes on mobile antennas in recent years, due to a conflict with telecom operators. In addition, many parking fines have not been collected. Added together with a few incomplete subsidies, this results in the sum of 18 million.
3 million a year
“An external audit is not necessary, because Anderlecht is already being monitored by the regional inspectorate,” says Lorbat. Such an inspector monitors municipalities where the budget is structurally in the red. In the current budget of Anderlecht, 9 million euros has already been put in value and another 3 million in the extraordinary budget, emphasises alderman Roex. “We have already taken into account the recommendations of the Region. We will continue to do this at a rate of 3 million euros per year, because unfortunately every year there is income that we will not be able to collect.”
