Government spends millions for external consultants - where does the money flow?
Government spends millions for external consultants - where does the money flow?
In the past few months, the Federal Government's expenditure has increased significantly for external consulting services, as numerous analyzes show. Alma Zadić, the Greens' vice club chief, examined the contracts and orders of the ministries in detail. These investigations show that a seminar for "flipchart design" was carried out in the Ministry of Defense under the direction of Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP), at a price of 2,564.88 euros. The Ministry of Transport by Peter Hanke (SPÖ) also provided interesting findings. There, a “single coaching online” was scheduled in “High German in 12 weeks” with an order volume of 1,980 euros, but the acceptance of which is still open.
It is particularly noteworthy that media minister and vice -chancellor Andreas Babler were prepared for the press hour in ORF by the "BetterTogether Group", which caused costs of 5,760 euros. In the Ministry of Economic Affairs under Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer (ÖVP), a clothing moth monitoring for Federal Mobile Management was even awarded for 3,400 euros. Media training, each of which costs around 4,000 euros, were commissioned among the new political core such as Justice Minister Anna Sporrer and Minister of Social Affairs.rising expenses for external consultants
Expenditures for consulting services rose to a total of 239.4 million euros in 2023, which represents an increase of 53.8 million euros compared to the previous year, reports N-TV. The number of consulting contracts rose from 765 in 2022 to 816 in 2023. The Federal Ministry of the Interior spent 59.7 million euros for foreign advice, an increase compared to 2022, where the amount was 56.9 million euros. The Federal Ministry of Finance, led by Christian Lindner, is also involved in the expenses with 38.2 million euros, an increase of 7.1 million euros compared to the previous year.
- Federal Ministry of the Interior: 59.7 million euros (2022: 56.9 million euros)
- Federal Ministry of Finance: 38.2 million euros (2022: 31.1 million euros)
- Federal Ministry of Health: Stable at 17.9 million euros
These high expenses were justified by the government with the fact that they are necessary in order to be able to deal with current challenges better. External IT experts are often consulted to advance digitization. A significant part of the expenditure also does not apply to legal appraisal and consultations on the understandable language. The Ministry of Agriculture stated that it was advised by how to achieve better quality of advice.
criticism of the expenditure
The opposition is concerned about this development and criticizes the high expenses for external consultants, especially against the background of the greatness of the federal government. A large part of these expenses, which added to at least 433 million euros in 2020, show a worrying trend, especially against the background of the savings in the public service. The Federal Audit Office and other experts demand that the federal government should better process its core tasks with its own staff in order to avoid dependencies on external consultants.
The transparency in the allocation of orders to external companies is also considered necessary. Matthias Höhn, a member of the left, has followed the expenses for external consultations in detail since 2018 in order to illuminate the waste of tax. Höhn emphasizes that the high costs of the external consultants are not justified compared to the services of their own civil servants and warns of a risk to the independence of the state.
Overall, the situation shows that the Federal Government uses external consulting services, which is economically and structurally both challenges and risks that require a critical view.
For more information about this development, the reports from OE24 , n-tv and Deutschlandfunk .
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