An unemployed Belgian who says she “forgot” to declare her trip to Spain for 5 years will have to reimburse the equivalent of nearly $50,000 Canadian in speech received wrongly.
Traveling since 2017 to Tenerife, an island in Spain, a woman from Profondeville, in the province of Namur in Belgium, continued to receive unemployment benefits from the National Employment Organization (Onem), according to the Belgian media. 7 out of 7.
“She had not had a vehicle registered in Belgium since 2012 and made most of her expenses in Tenerife. She rarely returned to visit her parents or, in her own words, to go to job interviews,” said the Labor Inspectorate.
For her part, the woman would have defended herself by indicating that she had spent a “long vacation” on the island where she would have met a man. She would thus have “forgotten” to declare everything to Onem, continued the Belgian media.
The unemployed woman was ordered to repay the 33,500 euros, the equivalent of nearly $50,000 Canadian, unduly collected since 2017. She will thus have to pay 100 euros – nearly $150 – per month, over a period of 30 years. .
She was also fined 4,800 euros – more than $7,000 – by the Namur criminal court.