Last Tuesday, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) wanted to talk to parliamentarians of the Budget Committee about money that his multi-ministry would like to spend next year. Also on the agenda was the largest and most expensive digital project of the Federal Government: the modernization of digital working conditions in all federal agencies and almost all ministries.
The project, begun in 2015, has developed into a disaster, in Seehofer's Ministry is still the overall project management. Politically, he and his people have the main responsibility.
He had already had to deal with the same problems as prime minister in Bavaria, Seehofer complained on Tuesday according to participants of the meeting. Even there, individual ministries had resisted the modernization of their own IT and not involved. He will see the whole thing until the Cabinet meeting on 6th November at the latest. If there was no new common plan by then, he would ask the Chancellor herself to speak a word of power.
Cost quintupled
On the one hand, the "IT consolidation" adopted by the Cabinet in 2015, which was originally planned for a period of ten years, deals with uniform digital working conditions for all employees - such as the migration to the Windows 10 operating system. On the other hand, the historically grown state IT growth from across the board The Republic scattered nearly one hundred data centers and 1245 server rooms merged and unified.
The first cost estimates for 2014 were less than one billion euros. A confidential court report at the end of May delivered a damning interim result: "Project progress is behind at least three out of four storylines," it said, "spending has increased nearly fivefold since the first estimate from 2014" - meanwhile more than 3.4 billion euros.
Naive assumptions
The Committee on Budgets had blocked significant parts of these additional costs as early as last November and ordered the Federal Government to think it over from scratch. Since this spring, essential parts of the work are broke, which now leads to curious consequences: According to SPIEGEL information threatens the Ministry of Interior now also an embarrassing and taxpayer expensive litigation.
The background: Shortly after the launch of the megaproject, it became apparent that the digital infrastructure is far more confusing and heterogeneous among the authorities than in the far too naive and optimistic assumptions.
Therefore, the Ministry of the Interior commissioned a second IT service provider in 2016, namely BWI GmbH. The IT subsidiary of the Bundeswehr had previously been responsible for the IT consolidation of the German Armed Forces with the Hercules project. Now, together with the ITZ Bund, which is based at the Ministry of Finance of Olaf Scholz (SPD), it should take over significant parts of the project.
No contract, no money
The assumption that they could simply use and expand the Hercules IT platform created by the German Armed Forces soon proved to be a further grave miscalculation. The BWI therefore began in a data center in Strausberg with the establishment of a completely new, civil authorities platform for the federal IT. In total, the company has already invested nearly 40 million euros in this regard.
The possible legal dispute is now ignited because the Ministry of the Interior did not conclude a contract with the service provider. Only by e-mail it had assured its service provider one would settle the incurred costs "appropriately".
Following the partial budget freeze and the Court of Auditors' warnings of this "uneconomic" and "inadmissible" practice, the ministry has now been refusing to pay BWI's open accounts for months - arguing that there is no contract. Overall, it is about claims of 21 million euros. The BWI therefore stopped the work and did not employ any external staff.
"Incomprehensible"
Now, the state-owned service provider wants to "enforce" its receivables with the Interior Ministry, if necessary, as it says in a new confidential draft of a Court of Auditors, which went to the participating houses these days. In addition, in case of doubt there would still be costs for the "complete write-off" of already procured hardware, all at the expense of the federal budget.
Earlier, according to the paper, there had been several unsuccessful attempts at state secretary level at the beginning of September, most recently with the participation of Chancellor Minister Helge Braun (CDU). The Court of Auditors expresses its misunderstanding of the dispute in the draft, takes sides with the service provider and sharply criticizes the ministry. That it does not pay, was for the auditors "incomprehensible". The service provider "undoubtedly" provided services for which he could expect compensation.
Escalation into the Federal Chancellery
The Court of Auditors is urging the state to intervene in its paper to an out-of-court settlement, otherwise "substantial legal costs" of at least 617,000 euros would have to be expected - again at the expense of the federal budget. The BWI did not want to comment on request. The Ministry of the Interior said that the case was "currently being discussed" between the parties, assuming that "a short-term agreement will be reached".
According to the latest plans for the "reorganization" of the mammoth project, the Ministry of the Interior would lose overall project management and the ITZ Bund would become a "central service provider". The BWI is only intended as its "subcontractor". In addition, there should be a new, "independent controlling" - located at the top, in the Federal Chancellery.
By the time of the November date demanded by Horst Seehofer, the Cabinet should now decide on the reorganization. The milestones planned for 2019, it says in the proposals for the reorganization sober, are "now no longer attainable".
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