Parliamentary sports club embezzlement may total up to EUR 100,000

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The former civil servant who embezzled funds from the Finnish Parliament’s sports club calculates that he has misappropriated a total of EUR 100,000 of the club’s money.
      On Wednesday the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s (YLE) news programme Yle Uutiset reported on its website of the man’s confession made to the YLE current affairs programme A-studio.
     
The embezzlement was revealed a couple of weeks ago when the funds of the sports club unexpectedly ran out.
      The assisting Parliamentary civil servant, who acted as the club’s treasurer, immediately confessed to the embezzlement. According to the initial estimates at least EUR 70,000 had disappeared from the club’s purse through the civil servant’s misappropriation activities that had continued for years. It now turns out that "years" goes back to the 1990s, when the person concerned put funds from the club into his own pocket and then later returned them.
      From 2002 onwards, things were rather more organised - the club's bookkeeping was left undone, accounts were fabricated, and any money left over was appropriated. The club's own board and auditors paased everything on the nod without the necessary inspection, and hence the matter only came to light when the money ran out.
     
The embarrassing episode, which has already led to numerous changes in Parliament, was also discussed in a supplementary sports club meeting held on Wednesday.
      MP Matti Saarinen (SDP), who has left his post as the club’s chairman, said that what had happened was regretted by everybody.
      “Our joint conclusion was that we all had been had”, Saarinen said in a statement of the obvious.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Embezzlement discovered at Parliament´s sports club (7.10.2009)

See also:
  Niinistö organises inspection of finances of Parliament´s hobby clubs (8.10.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat