Barroso must force OLAF boss Kessler to resign

 "Following today's disclosure by the OLAF Supervisory Committee of mismanagement by OLAF, the European Commission President José Barroso must take the necessary steps to force OLAF Director-General Giovanni Kessler to resign. Barroso must act now to save the reputation of OLAF from further damage. The breaches of rules, management mistakes and withholding of information destined for the Supervisory Committee, in the end, go against the interests of Europe's taxpayers, in whose name OLAF should be investigating fraud", the EPP Group Coordinator in the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee, Inge Gräßle MEP, said today following the publication of the annual report of the Supervisory Committee of the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF.

The Supervisory Committee today presented its annual report on OLAF's activities. It is charged with assuring that OLAF maintains basic rights during its investigations. The Supervisory Committee today revealed:

• Violations of basic rights
• Lack of activity in certain investigations for up to two years (Art. 58)
• The attempt by OLAF's Director-General to limit the competences and control possibilities of the Supervisory Committee (Art. 10-12)
• Investigations were personally led by OLAF's Director-General, opening up the possibility of a conflict of interests (p.42)
• Information destined for the Supervisory Committee was withheld, with information in documents being blackened, and the Supervisory Committee only getting limited and irregular access to information (Arts. 36 and 43)
• Serious legal violations, such as illegally aiding to tape a telephone conversation (p.36)

The Supervisory Committee also criticised OLAF's conduct in the case of former European Commissioner John Dalli. OLAF only belatedly informed the Supervisory Committee, thus depriving the committee from checking whether basic rights and procedures were maintained before the case was forwarded to the relevant authorities (Art. 29).

Gräßle called on the President of the European Parliament to give Members of the Budgetary Control Committee access to the relevant documents in the Dalli case.

"We need all the facts on the table. The mismanagement and withholding of information by OLAF Director-General Kessler must not be tolerated."