(AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION FROM ORIGINAL FRENCH) Since January 2024, the National Union of Associations for the Defense of Families and the Individual (UNADFI) has benefited from a €150,000 grant , kindly provided by MIVILUDES. Officially, this public windfall is supposed to finance a project to “digitize and share the association’s documentation,” which is touted as a heritage project. But upon closer inspection, the operation smacks above all of budgetary recycling, technocratic window dressing, and accounting opacity.
The project, simple on paper—scanning internal documents to make them available on a secure digital platform—turns out to be astronomically expensive: €150,000, drawn from taxpayer contributions, for access limited to… 150 people. That’s €1,000 per user to view PDFs. And be warned: the lucky ones will be sorted according to “rigorous” criteria that the association hasn’t seen fit to detail. At this level of absurdity, Kafka would have thrown up his hands.
The forecast budget figures are staggering: €142,746 will be needed to pay 2.2 full-time equivalents to scan paper. This, once expenses are deducted, comes to €3,651 net per month per position. Scanners have never been paid so well. The icing on the cake: €13,923 in travel expenses are anticipated, even though the documents to be scanned are all housed on UNADFI’s own premises. Should a shuttle be rented between the office and the photocopier?
The delirium continues on the hardware front. UNADFI is demanding €11,355 for the purchase of four computers, two scanners, OCR software, and a secure platform. Yet, its 2023 annual accounts show more than €92,000 worth of IT equipment already recorded as assets. What’s the point of buying more? Perhaps to feed the next line: €8,484 in maintenance and repairs… brand-new equipment, not yet purchased. Anticipating a breakdown before even purchasing it: is this budgetary foresight, or deception? The absurdity here borders on indecency.
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