The management and board of directors of Caritas push responsibility back and forth

When did the Caritas Board of Directors know about the multi-million dollar lines of credit that the aid organization has accepted as part of the 61 million euro fraud? Tom Brassel, the former head of operations at Caritas, had told Radio 100.7 that he already informed the Board of Directors Pit Bouché on June 6, 2024-more than a month before the scandal became known.

Bouché contradicted this on Monday at the Chamber special commission meeting on the processing of the financial scandal. In a Powerpoint presentation, he even showed Brassel’s WhatsApp messages to him to explain that he was not already informed in early June, Djuna Bernard von Déi Gréng described the meeting, which took place in the exclusion of the public.

It was only on June 25 that he was informed by Brassel that Caritas had taken out credit lines. It was apparently skeptical about it, because he had the point on the agenda of the following board of directors. But apparently not skeptical enough, because this should only take place in mid -July.

He was apparently not aware of the urgency and the financial extent of the credit lines. At the meeting, he also justified this by the fact that only the directing members, but not the board of directors, had access to Caritas’ accounting software.

Finances under conference point « Other »

It was only on July 15 that the financial situation was spoken at the Board of Directors – below « Other », according to Bouchés, according to Bernard. It was only the next day that the former director Marc Crochet noticed the full extent of the fraud. « The board of directors points to the management and vice versa with its finger, » says Taina Bofferding (LSAP) after the session. « The Board of Directors has a control function. It did not take place in this way. »

In the past week, the Caritas supervisory board in a letter to the special commission had declared that its members from the management were only informed about the « suspicious financial flows » as part of the fraud on July 15. After the publication, former Caritas director Marc Crochet contradicted this presentation with the « Luxemburger Word » and supported Tom Brassel’s version.

« Mr. Brassel always clearly showed me that he had spoken to an board member during my absence. I see no reason to doubt his statements. These were also confirmed by the person concerned, » said Crochet. « What is true is the presentation that the credit lines were officially known to the Board of Directors on July 15, 2024 on the initiative of the directorate of the management present on the evening, and were therefore known to all board members from this date. »

However, new figures on the Caritas affair became known on Monday. According to Radio 100.7, the aid organization not only had liabilities of 30 million euros from the banks, but also a total of 10 million euros in service providers and the state in the form of tax debt.