The European Commission launched an investigation in January into Digisprong, a Flemish government programme for purchasing laptops and tablets for schools.
Several institutions are suspected of not correctly following public procurement laws, leading to increased scrutiny of Flanders authorities by European authorities.
This information came to light on Thursday from documents obtained by Belgian newspaper De Tijd. This information was later confirmed by the office of Flemish Education Minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA).
Specifically, the investigation concerns several schools, mainly Catholic, which made purchases outside of Catholic Education Flanders with a Belgian ICT supply company called Signpost. This IT group, based in Kortrijk, secured a contract to supply 450,000 laptops in 2023, worth a total of €220 million.
The European Commission suspects that the contracts may be in breach of procurement rules. Flanders has requested all schools involved to submit their purchase invoices. The number of schools involved in the investigation is not yet known.
