The Dutch government hands out billions of euros in subsidies every year but has little idea if the money is well spent, the NRC reported at the weekend.

Subsidies handed out in 2010 went to cannabis cafes, the Casa Rosso sex club, an Islamic group said to have terrorist links and a caviar company where the owner has convictions for fraud, the NRC said.

The sex shops and cannabis cafes were given grants to boost their security.

Criminal records

The information comes from research by Graydon into 5,360 companies and institutions which received government grants in 2010. Of those companies, 183 were involved in fraud, failed to provide accounts to the chamber of commerce, were paper-only entities or were owned by people with a criminal record.

A spokesman for the government service department RVO said the law does not allow requests for subsidies to be assessed on the basis of having a criminal record.

Subsidies are handed out by different ministries and there is no accurate picture of how much is spent overall, the paper said. The total is likely to be in the region of €6bn. The government operates over 630 different subsidy schemes.

The last time the government gave a detailed overview of its subsidy programme was in 2010. However, the finance ministry has pledged to come up with a new review on Wednesday, when the government accounts are debated in parliament.