Famifed, the federal body responsible for allocating family allowances, "did not make a mistake in estimating expenditure for the year 2019," it stated on Wednesday in response to recent proposals made by the Wallonian Minister for Social Action, Alda Greoli.
On Sunday, she justified the 70-million-euro extra expenditure for financing family allowances in Wallonia by indexing benefits but also by "the mistakes in estimating expenditure for 2019" on Famifed's part.
"The federal government's estimation error comes to some 40 million euros for Wallonia out of a budget of nearly 2 billion," she explained.
"Contrary to what was said this Sunday, Famifed did not make a mistake in estimating expenditure for 2019. As soon as the new legislation had been drawn up, Famifed had estimated the working poor or households in receipt of supplementary allowances whose income falls below a certain level, would add additional costs rising to 40 million euros for Wallonia," the federal body said in its defence this Wednesday.
"This information was communicated several times during March 2017 to the office of the Minister for Social Action," he added.
The Brussels Times
