In 2020, the Federal Ministry of Health will procure around one billion face masks against Corona from Jens Spahn.
But supposedly not all have been paid yet.
Now a court is examining a series of lawsuits.
Munich / Bonn - The Ministry of Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) comes under pressure.
The “Tagesschau” of the ARD uncovered a series of lawsuits against the department in the coronavirus pandemic in a report.
Coronavirus pandemic in Germany: Series of lawsuits against Jens Spahn's ministry
According to this, there are only 89 lawsuits filed by manufacturers of face masks against the BMG at the Bonn Regional Court.
70 of them are legally dependent with an amount in dispute of just under 206 million euros.
Even more: The Spahns Ministry would incur considerable additional costs of around 20 million euros for lawyers and procedural costs in the Corona crisis, according to the report.
That happened: At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany, the Federal Ministry of Health tried a so-called open house procedure.
This means that delivery contracts are concluded with all interested companies by a state client on specified conditions.
Corona crisis in Germany: Has the Federal Ministry of Health not paid for face masks?
According to the “Tagesschau”, a total of almost a billion FFP2, KN95 or N95 masks to contain Covid-19 had been procured by May 2020.
But allegedly not all suppliers were paid after the service was provided.
In the ARD it is said that there were also dubious producers who had never traded in protective material and / or delivered inferior goods.
But serious companies would still be waiting for their money.
The BMG, however, only resigned from some contracts retrospectively because the face masks were allegedly defective.
In the case of a Munich company, 500,000 of the 2.1 million masks delivered were not accepted.
Quite a few suppliers are unhappy, they say.
In one case, the Bonn Regional Court sentenced the federal government to pay 1.74 million euros to a Munich mask supplier - including a clear reprimand of the test procedure for face masks. According to the “Tagesschau”, the individual steps of the test procedure are not listed for the producers and are therefore not comprehensible. Whoever still has what claim should now be investigated and decided by the Bonn Regional Court. In the meantime, Jens Spahn's ministry is not calming down in the corona crisis, despite progressive vaccinations.
(pm)
