‘Open VLD has been responsible for Brussels’ financial mismanagement for a quarter of a century’

Brussels is suffering from financial mismanagement and the Flemish liberals are responsible for this.

The Brussels government has a hole in its hand. Between 2018 and 2022, the debt increased by 166 percent and this “mainly results from the successive budget deficits of the Brussels-Capital Region,” according to the Court of Audit. ‘The deterioration of these deficits is the result of the fact that expenditure is structurally increasing faster than revenue.’ While expenditures increased by an average of 6.2 percent annually, receipts only grew by an average of 2.5 percent.

Even worse is that the accounts of the Brussels-Capital Region have been a mess for years. For the third year in a row, the Court of Audit did not formulate an opinion on those accounts ‘due to uncertainties about tax receipts and claims’. In its most recent ’28th book’, the Court of Audit lists the sloppiness and blunders over 195 pages. The accounts of many Brussels public institutions are also rattling, such as the fire brigade or the parking agency parking.brussels. The invoice of New Samusocial, a non-profit organization that provides emergency aid, was not presented to the Court of Audit this year either. Financial mismanagement is widespread in Brussels and it runs deep.

This Brussels gossip does not only affect the people of Brussels, since the Brussels Region lives on federal subsidies and the Brussels figures are part of the Belgian figures that Europe assesses.

The responsible Brussels Minister of Finance and Budget, https://twitter.com/svengatz/status/1719714839449280567, but could not resist adding vile words ‘without ever drawing up a budget’. In thirteen messages, Gatz then shifts all responsibility for the accounting and financial mess. The main culprit is the software. The minister ends with ‘I cannot promise you perfection today. Maybe tomorrow. (…) But budget policy plus bills is a matter of years rather than days.’

For almost 25 years, the Flemish Liberals have continuously supplied the Brussels Minister for Finance and Budget, from Annemie Neyts in 1999 to Guy Vanhengel, Jean-Luc Vanraes and Vanhengel again to Sven Gatz, who took the oath on July 18, 2019. Correctly drawing up accounts may take years, but Gatz has been responsible as minister for more than four years for the exploding debts and for the fact that the Brussels accounts are incorrect. His party, the Open VLD, has been responsible for Brussels’ financial mismanagement for a quarter of a century.

Ewald Pironet is a senior writer at Knack.