Belgium's Halted Police IT Programme Cost €139.4m, Audit Shows

Belgium's abandoned i-Police technology programme generated €139.4 million in paid expenditure, including €21.6 million in software licences that now provide no benefit to police, according to a Court of Audit report approved on October 28, 2026. The findings document a major failure of public IT management, but they do not establish that the entire amount was stolen or that all the spending produced no useful services.

The Court of Audit examined the programme at parliament's request. The project was intended to modernise information systems across Belgium's federal and local police. The main contract was awarded in 2021 after a competitive-dialogue procurement process begun in 2017. Police officials said two early pilot projects failed to deliver satisfactory results; the programme was redirected in February 2024 and discontinued in December 2025.

The 121-page original audit and its summary give the financial breakdown. The €139.4 million represents expenditure paid or settled across the wider programme, not the face value of the original contract. The planned programme value had reached €299.7 million for 2021–2027, comprising a €225.7 million framework agreement and €74 million in additional costs. That planned value must not be presented as money actually spent. The auditors separately recorded €78.5 million in budget commitments not yet liquidated, mainly relating to the supplier contract; those are not paid losses.

The police acquired about €30.8 million in software licences. According to the audit, €7.3 million in licences was never used, while €14.2 million was used during development but became unusable when the programme stopped. Together, the €21.6 million represents roughly 70% of the licences' value. The remaining licence value should not be called wasted merely because the main project ended.

The audit also describes spending on Focus@GPI, a police application developed in cooperation with Antwerp. It records that the platform had been deployed across police zones and was still being developed separately from the terminated main supplier contract. This distinction matters: the headline €139.4 million total includes multiple contracts and public-service components, not just payments to the main contractor.

The auditors found weaknesses in planning, risk analysis, contractual exit clauses and reliance on external consultants. But the report also records that the procurement procedure for the main contract followed basic public-procurement principles. The audit focused on federal police management rather than determining criminal liability or judging the supplier's entire conduct. Local reporting by BRUZZ, drawing on the Belga news agency, also described the cost breakdown and the auditor's findings on inadequate project controls.

The programme's end is disputed in court. The original audit says the main service provider sought payment for invoiced and uninvoiced work totalling €6.2 million including VAT, release of a guarantee and compensation for alleged harm. The federal police sought confirmation of the contract termination, repayment of €65 million in previously paid invoices and €178.7 million in damages. These are opposing legal claims, not court-awarded recoveries, and neither amount should be added to the €139.4 million expenditure as an established loss.

The federal police supplied a written response dated September 25, which the Court of Audit included as an appendix. The interior minister did not respond to the draft report, according to the auditors. The police argued, among other points, that a lengthy termination period had been intended to allow a replacement procurement and maintain continuity; auditors concluded that interdependent projects and ambiguous clauses made the planned stop-and-go mechanism difficult to use.

The immediate accountability questions are whether the court will decide who owes what, whether unusable licence expenditure can be recovered, and which audit recommendations police managers and ministers implement. A criminal finding, personal conflict of interest or proven diversion of public funds cannot be inferred from the audit's spending totals.