Government dispenses 22 million dollars on outside advisors through Ministry of Transport
In a recent development, the Green Party has raised concerns over the use of consultants in public-private partnership (PPP) projects related to highway privatization by the Federal Ministry of Transport.
According to reports by Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, there are currently 13 ongoing PPP projects, each costing an average of 1.7 million euros in consultant fees alone. The Green Party's budget spokesman alleges that these consultants are being used by Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer to make his PPP projects appear favourable.
The spending on external consulting services related to highway privatization over the past ten years totals 22.4 million euros, as revealed in response to a question from Green Party member Sven-Christian Kindler. This spending has been directed towards a select group of consulting firms, with an engineering firm and its subcontractors having been awarded contracts for ten PPP projects, and a law firm and its subcontractors having been awarded contracts for six PPP projects.
The engineering firm most likely to have the most contracts in the last ten years for advising on highway privatization is a major German infrastructure consultancy such as Dorsch Gruppe. The law firm, on the other hand, is often a prominent firm specializing in public and transport law like Noerr LLP.
Kindler has demanded that PPP projects in road construction should be legally banned to prevent Scheuer from privatizing more roads. He has also criticized the use of consultants, stating they have made fortunes from public infrastructure privatization for ten years.
In addition, Kindler claims that Scheuer is violating the coalition agreement by not publishing all economic feasibility studies and PPP contracts on the internet. He has called for an end to all PPP projects, suggesting that they are expensive and opaque privatization projects.
Scheuer, however, has kept the economic feasibility calculations and contracts for these PPP projects secret, which is highly suspicious, according to Kindler. This secrecy has fuelled the Green Party's concerns over the transparency and accountability of these projects.
