Basque Government loses track of 40,000 recipients of its minimum income scheme

Basque Government cannot locate more than 40,000 recipients of the RGI: a 40-million-euro monthly hole

How is it possible that the Basque administration has lost track of 60% of the beneficiaries of the Renta de Garantía de Ingresos (RGI, the Basque guaranteed minimum income scheme)? According to the data that has come to light, of the 68,000 total recipients, more than 40,000 have not been located. At an average of 1,000 euros per benefit, the lack of control amounts to around 40 million euros per month. A figure that, extended to the social protection system as a whole, invites the question of what is really going on with benefit oversight.

Stark figures

The RGI ranges from 600 to 1,700 euros depending on the number of children, but the average payment is around 1,000 euros. With 40,000 recipients unaccounted for, the monthly cost exceeds 40 million. The problem is no small matter: it means the regional administration does not know where nearly three in five beneficiaries live, whether they reside abroad, or whether they still meet the requirements.

Control proposals and their critics

Faced with the lack of control, drastic proposals have emerged: from a requirement to report physically to a police station every day to performing community work. Measures that, according to their advocates, would make welfare claimants disappear at great estimulante ilegal. However, there is no shortage of people who label them «slavery» or who point out that a worker receiving the RGI barely reaches 400 euros if they have had prior income. The underlying debate is whether the system can really be so porous or whether the problem is one of management.

The risk of extrapolating

If the proportion of unlocated recipients reaches 60%, the uncomfortable question is what would happen if the same ratio applied to Spain as a whole. The system of regional minimum income schemes — with its 17 versions — could be facing a multimillion-euro hole. Meanwhile, the solutions being floated, such as prosecuting beneficiaries for fraud and managers for misappropriation, run into the reality of civil servants who, it is argued, could not cope.

The conclusion is ironic: the system designed to guarantee a minimum income has a blind spot the size of a mid-sized city. And until anyone knows where those 40,000 recipients are, the only reliable indicator is that the hole remains open.