In times of general austerity appeals, cases of wasting public funds seem particularly absurd. Some things seem like a prank on a bourgeoisie. But hardly anyone feels like laughing.
Chemnitz/Leipzig (dpa/sn) – The Association of Taxpayers in Saxony has once again made blatant cases of wasting money public in its black book. The taxpayers’ association announced on Wednesday that the negative “Schleudersachse” prize went to the city of Leipzig this year. The trade fair city sold a building complex for 500,000 euros in 2014 and has now decided to buy it back for around 15 million euros in order to accommodate refugees. As early as 2014, experts warned of possible damage in the millions because the property could be used again later. Now the price for the purchase corresponds to 30 times the sales proceeds at the time.
With a view of a fire station in the city of Dippoldiswalde in the district of Paulsdorf, the taxpayers’ association spoke of a prank. Ten years ago, the building was expanded at a cost of 329,000 euros, without observing the applicable building standards. When a new fire engine was needed, it turned out that none of the vehicles currently available on the market would fit through the entrance gate of the tool shed.
The Saxon “online guard” of the police was attested to “more appearances than reality”. Citizens have been able to file criminal charges online via a portal for over 12 years. Since then, the volume has increased tenfold. “The problem: The information from the online advertisements is entered into the ‘integrated transaction processing system’ manually by police officers.” Since there was no modernization, there was an additional expense. The personnel and material costs for the recording and recording of the online advertisements would have been around 1.7 million euros in 2020 – and the trend is rising.
A government call for vaccinations was also criticized. The letter was sent to 1.4 million people over the age of 60 in February 2022. However, 82 percent of them had already been vaccinated at least once: “Many of them were planning a booster vaccination or had already received it.” The costs for the letter campaign amounted to 763,000 euros, 627,000 euros of which went to letters to people who had already been vaccinated.
At the same time, the taxpayers’ association also complained about the size of the state parliament. The parliaments of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia were included in the criticism. All three state parliaments would afford an above-average number of MPs, the deviations from the average of the non-city states are serious. “With a moderate reduction of 20 MPs in each of the three state parliaments, there would still be far above-average and generous funding,” was the conclusion. Saxony could save around 11.5 million euros per legislative period, in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia the figure is 11.3 million and 9.4 million euros respectively.
