Most of them went to the ministries under Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, both CSU politicians.
Berlin - The federal government has spent more than a billion euros on external advice in the current legislative period.
This emerges from a response from the Ministry of Finance to a request from Left-wing MP Matthias Höhn.
Between the end of October 2017 and the end of July 2021, the expenditure of the ministries and their authorities amounted to 1.072 billion euros, report the news agencies AFP and dpa.
According to the partially provisional figures, the Federal Ministry of the Interior under Horst Seehofer (CSU) accounted for around 493 million euros, followed by the Ministry of Transport under Andreas Scheuer (CSU) with just under 197 million euros and the Ministry of Finance under Olaf Scholz (SPD) with just under 122 million Euro.
The Ministry of Labor under Hubertus Heil (SPD) recorded the lowest expenditure with 2.5 million euros and the Federal Chancellery with 3.3 million euros.
Consultant costs for the GroKo under Merkel: Linke speaks of a "devastating balance sheet"
The involvement of business consultants and other external experts by the federal government is highly controversial.
Critics say that buying expertise is too expensive and, given the thousands of employees in the ministries, not absolutely necessary.
In addition, it is feared that it will have too great an impact on government work.
Proponents, on the other hand, expect added value in a wide variety of areas through an outside perspective or use experts for special tasks that do not require permanent employees.
This can apply to tasks in the IT area, for example.
Höhn attested that the CDU / CSU and SPD government had a “devastating balance sheet” in terms of consultant spending at the end of the legislative period.
"The next federal government must finally create complete transparency about the activities of these companies in the ministries and authorities and massively reduce their influence on political decision-making processes," he demanded.
(AFP / dpa / frs)
