Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
First of all, the 3.1% you mentioned still runs into over €1 billion.
Second, the alleged UK fraud you mentioned, is not part of the audit report that you referenced. In any case the UK government rejects the allegation and its methodology as reported in https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-br...-idUKKCN1GK2CG
Third, on methodology, the Audit Court took 1,000 transaction samples out of the millions across the EU directorate. They then extrapolated the 1.3% across the total spend to provide their gross estimate of error. Apart from the 1,000 transactions being of questionable statistical significance for this type of investigation, I don't see where they've paid attention to where fraud or error is likely to be more easily committed. Their sampling method is questionable and I'm cynical enough to say contrived to show a benign trend.
---------- Post added at 14:51 ---------- Previous post was at 13:55 ----------
Btw the referendum was in 2016 and working backwards for decades, the error rate even using their skewed method was inexcusable.
I'm ashamed for you that you accused the UK of committing a €2.7 billion fraud. The EU is making the accusation and our guvmin is refuting that allegation.
I really do want remainers to try and make our exit work rather than keep on about how much better it will be to stay in the EU. Respect the Referendum result, please.
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Fair enough, I am not an accountant (my experience of audits are quality system ones) and assumed that financial audits take samples and extrapolate from that (much like quality audits) rather than going line by line through the whole account book.
Of course, if the auditing methodology is incorrect, then any conclusions including "They are corrupt because the European Court of Auditors have found regularly that billions of Euros have not been paid in accordance with rules" cannot be factually correct either.
I didn't accuse the UK of committing fraud BTW, OLAF did this. However, the government is quibbling on the value, not the facts. I am concerned that, if this is true, then the trust for a new trading agreement is somewhat eroded.