The French anti-corruption agency points “risks of probity” and “conflicts of interest”, scratching the image of the Olympic Games “Examples” wanted by the boss of the Organizing Committee.
Le Monde with AFP
Two reports from the French anti-corruption agency (AFA) on the organization of the Olympic Games (OJ) of 2024 in Paris and whose Agence France-Presse (AFP) has taken note of “risks of attacks to Probity “and” conflicts of interest “, scratching the image of the” copies “Olympics wanted by the boss of the Organizing Committee, Tony Estanguet.
These two initial reports delivered to the beginning 2021, whose chained duck had already mentioned the content almost a month ago, are devoted to the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (COJO) itself and the solid, The company that has to deliver the works for games, and still have to integrate the responses from the two organizations. “This is a process in contradictory, and AFA does its work in collaboration with the organizers,” says AFP a source with knowledge of the file.
Concerning the COJO (3.8 billion euros of budget), after highlighting its good will to fight against “attacks on probity”, the Agency also considers that the framework put in place is not “At the height of the stakes and risks incurred”.
For inspectors, OCOO Conflict of Interest Management Procedures are “imprecise, incomplete, insufficiently respected and controlled”, with an ethics charter written in “way too imprecise” to prevent “the risk of taking illegal interest in departures from its employees to the private sector “.
” Potential Conflicts of interest “
They also believe that the general procurement procedure is “inconsistent and incomplete”, and emphasize that there are “sometimes situations of potential unqualified conflicts of interest”.
The report evokes in particular the case of a former PARIS-2024 candidate campaign director who has mounted a company that has obtained a market suspected by the inspectors to have been “sausage”, that is to say divided so that the amounts escape the legal advertising obligation.
“We know that we are expected on the exemplarity. There are some remarks from the AFA that seems to us to be prone to interpretation, for example we are not submitted as a association with all the articles governing the code of public procurement, “said the AFP the COJO. “We have taken into account all the recommendations made by the AFA that are relevant to us,” have been added from the same source.
In the case of the solid (3.2 billion euros of budget), the authors of the report doubt “that the system for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest (…) is fully effective”.
Here too, they point a written ethics charter “too imprecise to prevent the risk of illegal interest in departures from its employees to the private sector”, and evoke a decision-making process “not Sufficiently transparent “.
In their opinion, the terms of advertising for purchases “greater than 40 000 euros and less than 90 000 euros” do not guarantee “compliance with the obligations of advertising and competition”, with procedures during the phase to allocate markets that “have weaknesses likely to increase its exposure to the risks”.
For inspectors, “the mastery of the risk of probity abuse has not been erected a priority objective by the solido”. “We responded to this initial report and in connection with the AFA, we have developed an action plan that is currently being implemented,” said the solid at AFP.
Inspectors, recalling the criminal prosecution of the presidents of the Brazilian and Japanese Olympic Committees related to the last two summer games (Rio and Tokyo), also observe that “the risks of violation of probity are frequent in the Frame of major sporting events “.