A judicial investigation is opened in Let’s Go Urban’s file. The Antwerp public prosecutor’s office confirms this on Friday evening. The investigation is intended to clarify the financial tangle surrounding the non-profit organization and to investigate what is wrong with the alleged financial mismanagement and the possible abuse of subsidies.
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Let’s Go Urban and El Kaouakibi have been in the eye of the storm since the beginning of February, after three directors resigned and received a unilateral petition from the chairman of the Antwerp corporate court that a provisional administrator was appointed for the organization. That administrator must lead Let’s Go Urban for the next three months and internally investigate whether “financial malpractice” has occurred, as the (former) directors fear. An external audit revealed an accounting chaos and a lack of divides between the non-profit organization and El Kaouakibi’s own companies. The city of Antwerp also decided to start up its own investigation, in particular with the question of whether the many subsidies that Let’s Go Urban received in recent years have been spent correctly. After the allegations, Open VLD suspended the Flemish Member of Parliament until mid-August.
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So now an investigating judge has also been appointed to clarify the tangle around the non-profit association. According to the Antwerp public prosecutor’s office, this is a logical consequence after all previous steps. Whether that will also lead to a prosecution of El Kaouakibi will have to be decided later.
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