"It is urgent for the EU to shed light on the case of embezzlement of aid to the people of Tindouf and take sanctions against those responsible for fraud," Mr Pargneaux indicated at a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) at the European Parliament with the head of European diplomacy Federica Mogherini.

Mr Pargneaux said he was "shocked" to learn that much of European aid to populations sequestered in Tindouf camps in the Algerian southwestern is sold on foreign markets for the benefit of Polisario leaders and their acolytes.

This large-scale fraud revealed by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) "undermines the credibility of the European institutions," he insisted, noting that European audit services concluded that most of aid is diverted by Polisario leaders with the blessing of Algerian authorities who have never accepted that the inhabitants of the Tindouf camps are identified despite repeated requests from the UN.

Only aid to survive is distributed, noted the president of the EU-Morocco Friendship Group in the European Parliament who also pointed to the restrictions imposed by the Algerian authorities and Polisario leadership to international organizations wishing to carry out control and inspection missions in the camps to ensure that international aid actually reaches the people for whom it is intended.

German MEP of the European People's Party (EPP), Chair of the Budget Control Committee of the European Parliament, Ingeborg Grassle, also heckled EU diplomatic service about fraud and irregularities by OLAF during its investigation into the misappropriation of aid from the EU to the inhabitants of Tindouf camps. "Among the million allocated annually by the EU to the people of Tindouf how much are embezzled by Polisario?", she said, adding that she cannot imagine that the European External Action Service does not have any figures on the amounts of embezzled aid for several years.

German MEP Michael Theurer, Alliance Group coordinator of European Liberals (ALDE) at the LAD Commission also raised the matter of misappropriation wondering if EU diplomatic service is for strengthening controls to ensure that European taxpayers' money is not misused.

"We must strengthen controls to avoid abuses found by the European Anti-Fraud Office, which go against the objectives of the EU in foreign affairs," he insisted.

The OLAF report, produced in 2007, whose content was made public last week after the intervention of the European Ombudsman, shows heavy accusations to the leaders of Polisario and the Algerian authorities and cites names of suspects to be the organizers of these embezzlement, which begins in the Algerian port of Oran where "what should be sent and what can be embezzled" process starts.

- News and events on Western Sahara issue / Corcas -