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Millions of dollars for masks: Holetschek defends Bavaria's expensive mask purchases: "It was a matter of life and death"

2021-05-05T23:54:33.460Z


Health Minister Klaus Holetschek defended the high expenditure on corona protective masks at the beginning of the pandemic. The costs were due to the situation at the time.


Health Minister Klaus Holetschek defended the high expenditure on corona protective masks at the beginning of the pandemic.

The costs were due to the situation at the time.

Munich - The Minister of Health of Bavaria, Klaus Holetschek (CSU *), justified the immense expenditure in spring 2020 with the situation at the time on Tuesday afternoon (May 4th). "It was a matter of life and death", according to the

dpa

, justified Holetschek's

decision in the Bavarian state parliament last spring. According to him, FFP2 masks * were primarily purchased at prices below five euros per mask. Only in one of the 59 sales contracts did he admit that the prices for this were almost nine euros.

He referred to the average nationwide accepted price at that time.

According to the government, this was 16.71 euros per FFP2 mask.

In some contracts of the ministries, prices of over 35 euros have been accepted.

The Bavarian Ministry of Health did not pay such prices, according to Holetschek.

Prices for FFP2 masks: Holetschek refers to Asian own needs and scarce material

The Bavarian SPD had previously criticized the immense expenditure of the state government because of excessively high prices.

There was talk of purchase prices over 8.90 euros, which the SPD * was too high.

Since there has so far been no public assignment between prices, manufacturers and suppliers, according to SPD state chief Florian von Brunn, no parliamentary control is possible.

Holetschek explained the allegations that in the dramatic situation at the time due to the corona virus *, there was a great global shortage of materials for the masks.

Also because suppliers in Asia have broken away because of their own needs.

At the same time, the demand for mask material exploded all over the world.

Prices for FFP2 masks: Holetschek safe: No commission for tips from politics

Overall, the Ministry of Health and the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) ordered material with a total volume of over 400 million euros between February and June 2020. This included 150 million protective and surgical masks valued at over 270 million euros, as well as more than 84 million disposable gloves valued at over 18 million euros.



With regard to the mask affair *, Holetschek also made it clear that the Bavarian Ministry of Health had never paid commission for helpful tips from politics. According to the Minister of Health, allegations that have arisen so far should be investigated and examined in the interests of the greatest possible transparency.

* Merkur.de / bayern is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-05-05

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