Lanbide cannot locate 41,400 RGI recipients: Where is the money going?

Lanbide cannot locate 41,400 RGI recipients: Where is the money going?

How can a government that prides itself on management not know where thousands of people receiving a vital lifelong benefit are? The answer comes from the Basque Employment Service itself: it has had to publish 41,400 notices in the Official Bulletin of the Basque Country (BOPV) because it could not deliver letters in person to recipients of the Basque Income Guarantee (RGI). These are not minor administrative notifications: among 1,807 acts analyzed in a sample, 539 were repayments and 50 suspensions. In other words, there are people from whom money is being claimed, yet they cannot even be located.

The trend is worsening. According to available data, notifications in the BOPV did not exceed 40,000 annually in 2022 and 2023. In 2024, they jumped to 63,542, and in 2025, they are nearing 75,000. What was once a slow administrative drip has become a flood of failed notices. A person may receive multiple notifications, but the volume suggests many beneficiaries have disappeared from the system's radar.

The debate on the fate of recipients

Official explanations do not convince anyone. It is argued that the notices alone do not prove recipients live outside Spain or are fraudulently collecting benefits, and that one person can accumulate multiple notifications. However, the jump from 40,000 to 75,000 in two years cannot be explained solely by repetitions. It has been pointed out that many of these unlocatable recipients may have returned to their home countries without reporting it, with aid continuing to be deposited into bank accounts. Indeed, the recent case of a Senegalese man who collected over one million euros using 62 fake identities was revealed by chance, not by internal controls.

While some call for drastic measures—such as automatically withdrawing the benefit if the recipient does not appear within 24 hours—others warn that the problem is not necessarily massive fraud, but bureaucratic management unable to keep beneficiary data up to date. The proposal to use biometrics to prove presence, pushed for some time, was rejected by the PNV and its partners for being considered "right-wing." Meanwhile, thousands of undelivered notices continue to pile up.

The economic cost of dislocation

If we take the average RGI benefit, around 1,000 euros per month, the 41,400 undelivered notices—even if not all correspond to different recipients—represent a potential monthly volume of up to 41 million euros in payments. A portion of this money, if recipients are effectively outside the country, is fleeing abroad without any possibility of control. And the Basque administration not only fails to prevent this, but cannot even confirm where the recipients are.

The irony of the system

It is paradoxical that while a native worker has their benefit suspended for failing to renew unemployment insurance on time, unlocatable recipients continue to receive aid month after month. As has been noted, tax authorities are ruthless with Spaniards who have accounts abroad, while the Basque income system does not know where its recipients are. The solution, in theory, is simple: require beneficiaries to appear periodically in person, or link payments to effective residence. But Basque politics of "not being right-wing" prevent this.