As of: March 29, 2024, 10:24 p.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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Former Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) in 2021 putting on an FFP2 breathing mask. © IMAGO / Political Moments
Former Health Minister Jens Spahn bought too many masks during the pandemic. Their administration alone costs a billion euros. And the benefit? Overall, the Court of Auditors judges that this is low.
Bonn – Former Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) bought 5.7 billion masks in 2020. As a report from the Court of Auditors to the Bundestag Budget Committee shows, over three billion of them have to be destroyed. The report puts the follow-up costs of the purchase alone at around one billion euros. Der
Spiegel
first
reported on it.
One billion euros: overprocurement of masks leads to massive follow-up costs
Two billion of the protective masks purchased have been distributed, 1.7 billion of them in Germany. “Even fewer masks were actually used,” according to the Court of Auditors report. And the remaining 3.7 billion masks? 1.2 billion have already been destroyed and another 1.7 billion are earmarked for destruction. Around 800 million masks can be used, but there is “no concept of use and distribution.” Their future will therefore soon be the trash can. The Court of Auditors put the costs of managing the excess masks purchased at 460 million euros by the end of 2023, with a further 534 million likely to be due in the current year.
In addition, according to the Court of Auditors, there are expenses for legal costs of at least 113 million euros, as
Spiegel
reported. The bottom line is that the follow-up costs alone are around one billion euros, the acquisition costs are not taken into account here: in 2021, the Court of Auditors came up with expenditure on masks of almost seven billion euros in a report. There was apparently also chaos in the Ministry of Health when it came to customs clearance, which also cost taxpayers dearly: because of the lack of a customs declaration, the Ministry may owe customs a mid-three-digit million amount, estimates the Court of Auditors.
Court of Auditors criticism of Spahn’s mask management: “Low benefit in fighting pandemics”
The Court of Auditors recognizes that, especially in the first few months of 2020, there was “great uncertainty about the severity and course of the pandemic.” However, it is undeniable that “only a fraction of the goods purchased and thus the funds spent were used effectively to combat the pandemic “became”.
With a view to the immense costs, the Court of Auditors' conclusion is: "The benefit in combating the pandemic was small compared to this." Jens Spahn had already come under criticism in the past as part of the so-called mask affair, among other things for awarding millions in contracts to companies possible connections to CDU members – as well as Spahn’s husband’s company.
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Further controversy: Court of Auditors criticizes the Ministry of Health's secrecy
In addition to the overprocurement itself, the Court of Auditors also criticizes the Ministry of Health's handling of it. Even after the internal decision to end mask procurement on May 5, 2020, orders continued to be placed, partly on the personal instructions of Jens Spahn. Award notes were “not signed at all or without a date,” and one was even backdated before the document was disclosed to a journalist. In order to avoid journalists' requests under the Freedom of Information Act (IFG), documents were systematically classified as “classified information”. According to the Federal Audit Office, there were no viable reasons for a classified classification.
And then the Court of Auditors had an indirect recommendation to the current Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD): The Federal Ministry of Health “should critically examine its procurement activities during the pandemic and the follow-up measures and develop resilient and legally secure strategies for future crisis situations.”
(bme with AFP)