FAIR still to meet with funding body
THE body at the centre of an EU funding row with victims' group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR) has still to meet the organisation almost one month after vowing it would do so.
Last month, Dublin-based funder Pobal accused FAIR of maladministration, which resulted in almost 900,000 in funding to the south Armagh group being cut off.
On September 16, the Belfast-based partner of Pobal – the Special EU Projects Body (SEUPB) – told the News Letter that it intended to “sit down at an appropriate time” with FAIR to discuss the issues. FAIR spokesman Willie Frazer said yesterday: “We can’t get them to talk to us. They haven’t spelt out the charges against us, we just have a general letter saying there were procurement problems but we don’t know what they mean.
“They have admitted that no money is missing but they won’t spell out what we have done wrong.”
Mr Frazer said that when procuring a new website, Pobal told FAIR that oral quotes would do but later changed their mind and asked for retrospective written quotes from the same companies.
“I would hope that is not the sort of thing they are holding against us,” he said.
Senior UUP politicians were demanding a meeting with SEUPB but could not get a response, he added.
TUV leader Jim Allister said it was an “absolute scandal” that SEUPB had still to meet FAIR.
“SEUPB has been very high-handed in sending out such a letter (to FAIR); refusing to meet with FAIR to discuss it for almost a month, and also refusing to meet anyone else at all to explain themselves,” said Mr Allister.
After SEUPB cut off funding, the Community Relations Council (CRC) also cut off FAIR’s core funding, pending an audit prompted by SEUPB’s findings.
Yesterday, Mr Frazer said that CRC has not begun an audit of its own but that he had heard indirectly that CRC core funding will resume.
A spokesman for SEUPB said it received a request to meet with a number of politicians on Friday and has subsequently agreed to meet the delegation this week.
He said the meeting with representatives of FAIR’s management board “will take place at an appropriate time when the report into the investigation is completed”.
“It is not the case that the body is refusing to meet with FAIR. The SEUPB is always open to explore opportunities to address the needs of victims, survivors and their families,” he added.
A CRC spokesman said it will be writing directly to FAIR shortly “to clarify the position with regard to their core funding and the commencement of the audit”.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Belfast
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 13 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South
