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In the opinion of the Federal Court of Auditors, the Ministry of Transport infringed the law on procurement and budget in the car toll. So it is according to SPIEGEL information in an unpublished report. The auditors therefore complain about the renegotiation of the Ministry with the bidder Kapsch TrafficCom and CTS Eventim, after they have submitted on 17 October 2018 their "final offer" for a toll system. These negotiations were prohibited by procurement law.
The result of the negotiations is also viewed critically by the inspectors. The bidding companies had submitted a bid amount of around three billion euros for the operation of the toll system. The budget committee of the Bundestag had provided however only two billion euro. In the negotiations, the ministry pushed costs below the € 2 billion mark, asserting, for example, that Kapsch and Eventim should take advantage of the toll terminals of the truck toll operator, Toll Collect. This change in the scope of services was also inadmissible, according to the Court of Auditors. The ministry should have informed the other bidders.
"The tricky Mr. toll": Read the full story here
The operator agreement also violated budget law. The costs of the toll terminals were illegally outsourced. In the opinion of the inspectors, Parliament should have been informed and agreed. At the request of SPIEGEL, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transport said: The allegations are not correct.
At the end of 2018, Minister of Transport Scheuer had concluded a contract with the two operating companies for the infrastructure levy, even before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) had pronounced its judgment on the toll. In the event of a negative judgment, generous compensation regulations for the companies had been agreed in the more than 500-page rule. After the verdict in mid-June this year, according to which the toll violates European law, now threatening demands of the operator companies of half a billion euros or more to the Ministry and thus the taxpayer to come.