Beke under fire for contact tracing tampering: ‘You appeared to be…

Flemish Minister of Welfare Wouter Beke (CD&V) has to answer to the Flemish Parliament for possible fraud in contact tracing.

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The opposition had its ammunition ready over reports that the Yource call center was billing thousands of hours of contact research that it never did. Member of Parliament Freya Van den Bossche (Vooruit) said that her party already identified possible fraud in contact tracing a year and a half ago. “The numbers were there, the reports were there. You should have known this. How come you didn’t ask questions?’

Groen and Vlaams Belang also questioned the control of contact tracing. They find it incomprehensible that it was not noticed earlier. ‘The Finance Inspectorate and the Court of Audit had insisted on an audit,’ said Jeremie Vaneeckhout (Groen). ‘You remained deaf to the signals, the contract was even extended. You are failing, you are undergoing this crisis, you are not in control of this virus, unfortunately you are not in control of your crisis policy. Important signals apparently get through to you later than to us. ‘

“Isn’t it time you took political responsibility?” asked Vlaams Belang MP Stefaan Sintobin. Lise Vandecasteele (PVDA) called the minister ‘naive’. ‘How come you have such blind faith in a commercial partner who signs a multi-million dollar contract with the government?’

It was striking that Beke also received criticism from the majority party N-VA. “Who knew what when?” Lorin Parys asked. “And why didn’t we know this much earlier?”

Freya Saeys (Open VLD) stated that contact tracing can no longer follow. ‘How is it possible that no alarm bells have gone off. Who failed to establish that fraud? The mutualities, KPMG, the Agency for Care and Health? Why haven’t the quality inspectors seen anything?’

Control mechanismes

Minister Beke called the fraud ‘reprehensible’, especially at a time of a healthcare crisis. ‘That cannot be tolerated. That is why we immediately launched an external investigation into the functioning of all call centers.’

According to the minister, there were indeed control mechanisms, ‘but they were clearly not enough’. ‘I also wonder how that is possible. I also want to know if those practices may have happened at other call centers. That is why we requested an external audit. It is also good that the Court of Audit takes care of the entire operation of contact tracing.’

This is about fraud, emphasized Beke. ‘Three times the Court of Audit has requested information on its own initiative, never once did the Court of Audit say that it should be looked into.’

Contact tracing

Beke does not share the criticism that contact tracing does not work properly. ‘At the moment, 87 percent of high-risk contacts are reached again. Yes, that is under tension due to the increasing infections. That is also the case in other countries.’

Beke said that five million people have been contacted in the past year and a half. 350,000 inbound travelers and 50,000 schools, among others, were addressed by the contact tracing. ‘Fraud is a disgrace and action must be taken against it. We must continue to pay attention to contact tracing. We have to fill the gap that would have been created by the disappearance of one of those call centers as quickly as possible.’

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