Authority reports youth association to the police

Authority reports youth association to the police
full screen The Authority for Youth and Civil Society Affairs has reported the Roma Youth Association to the police. Archive image. Photo: Tim Aro/TT

The Roma Youth Association is suspected of embezzling state grants by providing misleading information.

Now the union is reported to the police by the Agency for Youth and Civil Society Affairs (MUCF).

“MUCF suspects that the Roma Youth Association, by providing incorrect information, or by having omitted information, caused the authority to wrongly pay out organizational grants and project grants,” MUCF writes in a press release.

It has therefore been decided to make a criminal report to the Ecocrime Authority and the Police Authority regarding the youth association and its representatives.

According to the authority, refunds for paid grants may also be relevant.

The background to the notification is an audit of the Roma Youth Association, where deficiencies in the accounting and differences among its representatives were discovered.

The authority then commissioned an audit firm to conduct an in-depth review of previously granted grants that show “apparent deficiencies in the financial accounting”. According to MUCF, it has not been possible to determine what the grant money has been used for.

Dagens Nyheter stated this spring that the Roma Youth Association, based in Malmö, has received close to SEK 40 million in various grants from MUCF since 2011.

The Roma Youth Association, formed by 2,000, is according to its own information Sweden’s largest Roma organization and works to improve the conditions for Roma children and young people.

TT has been in contact with the youth association, which declines to comment.

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