The NATO Procurement Agency (NSPA), which has been at the center of several corruption investigations, is also struggling with internal unrest. This is evident from an investigation by Knack in collaboration with Le Soir, Follow The Money, and La Lettre. The NSPA's HR director accused her own director general of irregularities. There are also concerns about the oversight of the agency, which executes billion-dollar contracts.

And all this is happening while NATO SG Mark Rutte is aggressively trying to implement his controversial ‘NATO economy’, demanding NATO member states to invest billions in the (US) defence industry.

In April NATO decided to open an investigation into allegations against Stacy Cummings, the American Director General of the NSPA agency in Luxembourg, and her team. The reason is a letter of complaint that Canadian Geneviève Machin – then HR director of the NSPA – sent to the board at the end of February. She also delivered the letter to NATO SG Mark Rutte. 

The HR director criticized, among other things, the alleged "apparent cases of corruption" "involving significant sums of money and in which the same employee names keep cropping up, but the [internal NSPA] investigators have been told not to investigate." According to NATO spokeswoman and 'Rutte-confidant' Allison Hart , there appears to be no connection between these allegations and the arrests in mid-May as part of corruption investigations by public prosecutors. Alledgedly, HR director Machin was first suspended and then her contract was not renewed. An independent agency was appointed to investigate the matter but the results are still pending five months later…..

There are also concerns about the external oversight of the NATO Procurement Agency. At the end of May, NATO SG Rutte suddenly announced that the NSPA secretariat would be moving from Luxembourg to NATO's international staff headquarters in Brussels. Several NATO member states fear that this could weaken their oversight of the NSPA's operations.

NATO SG Rutte and the Director General of the NSPA Cummings have established a joint investigative task force between NATO headquarters and NSPA staff to enhance investigative capacity and thoroughly investigate any potential case of fraud or corruption by the agency's personnel or contractors doing business with the agency. However, the NSPA's head of internal audit, the Italian Gerardo Bellantone, expresses concerns about his independence and the pressure he is experiencing. 

NATO's Stacy Cummings rejects media requests for comment and clarification.

Perhaps Mark Rutte can tell us more?!