The Agency for Care and Health will file a criminal complaint against the call center Yource, which is part of the consortium responsible for contact tracing in Flanders. The reason is an investigation by The last news, which shows that there is strong evidence that services were billed that did not occur.
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Mifratel, a subsidiary of Yource, which together with five other companies is responsible for contact tracing in Flanders, is said to have systematically let contact tracers work on other projects, but have invoiced these services to the Flemish government. The approximately forty so-called tracers have been logging in daily to the online platform of the contact investigation since March, but were actually carrying out other assignments at that time.
After questions from The last news the agency launched its own investigation. “The agency has had to establish that there are indications that Yource has incorrectly invoiced services and may have even committed fraud,” said spokesman Joris Moonens. The collaboration with the company was meanwhile terminated and an external audit of the other companies in the consortium was ordered.
The government pays 41.63 euros per hour for a contact investigator. The forty contact trackers together account for thousands of logged in hours, which means that the amount could easily exceed a million euros. Parent company Yource says it will check everything and refund the amount ‘if incorrectly billed’.
Beke: ‘Extremely reprehensible’
Flemish Minister of Welfare Wouter Beke (CD&V) calls the alleged fraud ‘extremely reprehensible’. He supports the decision to take legal action. Dirk De Wolf, administrator-general of the Agency for Care and Health, wants to investigate the false invoicing. If there is fraud, he wants to reclaim payments on false invoices.
The Flemish contact research is carried out by a consortium of six call centers: IPG, Call-IT, In2Com (united in Koramic2engage), Callexcell, N-Allo and Yource-Group. They are largely responsible for calling infected persons and their high-risk contacts. Yource itself was responsible for approximately 19 percent of the consortium’s total capacity. Minister Beke is convinced that the contact investigation can continue to be guaranteed, even without Yource.
Customer Contact, the Belgian professional association of customer services and contact centers, has suspended the membership of contact center Yource with immediate effect.
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