The Federal Court of Audit has asked Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen to control the further work on the naval sailing training ship "Gorch Fock" and the executing shipyard much stricter than previously planned.
In a confidential report to the ministry, the examiners write that the building must "be controlled by experts who are not members of the German Armed Forces", "whether the quality of the work so far is sufficient", so that the "Gorch Fock" can be used again as a sailing training ship ,
The recommendations are part of the final report on the Court of Auditors' intensive audits on Friday. The first confidential test notice had made the SPIEGEL a few months ago, and thus triggered the affair surrounding the panic-stricken project "Gorch Fock".
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In the meantime, the Ministry has admitted the most allegations of the Court of Auditors. Thus, the Bundeswehr had never properly assessed the damage to the ship and blindly accepted the cost estimate of just under ten million euros for the refurbishment.
Later, as the cost of the renovation continued to rise, the administration of the ministry was apparently deliberately misinformed. As a result, the minister herself twice signed the order to continue, even though the cost has now reached 135 million euros.
Meanwhile, von der Leyen has ordered that the temporarily stopped work should continue. The CDU politician hopes that the Elsflether shipyard can still rehabilitate the completely disassembled ship in the cost of 135 million euros. However, she announced strict and regular controls by the ministry.
Auditors recommend strict controls from external experts
That's not enough for the examiners. Almost menacingly, they write in the final report that they will "continue to monitor the repair of the 'Gorch Fock'" and look through the relevant documents and status reports. For Von der Leyen, this control means extra pressure.
The report makes it clear that the trustees of the relevant naval arsenal, which let go of the sloppiness of the past few years, are no longer trusted. Quite frankly, the examiners recommend strict controls by "experts who are not members of the Bundeswehr".
The following recommendations clearly show that the examiners are not convinced of the success of the further refurbishment. In the event of failure or further cost increases, they ask the Ministry to immediately investigate whether the construction of a brand new training vessel is not more effective.
In cooperation with the shipyard, the Court of Auditors warns mistrust. Thus, must be examined by the Leyen, "to what extent the liquidity and efficiency are secured until the completion of repair".
The board of directors of the Elsflether Werft, which was sold a few weeks ago, had massively withdrawn capital from the shipyard and invested in dubious subcontractors. At the turn of the year, the shipyard was facing insolvency. Meanwhile, a new board leads the company.
If it goes to the Court of Auditors, should handle of the Leyen with the shipyard in spite of the boss change robust. It would therefore be necessary to examine to what extent budgetary resources could be recovered from the main contractor because of deficiencies and "non-submitted rebates by subcontractors".
Background are suspicions, according to which the old board members agreed with various subcontractors inflated prices for individual orders during the renovation and could have enriched so.
There are still many questions left
For the Minister, the report is another reminder that there must be no errors in the further rehabilitation of the "Gorch Fock". The project may be small in contrast to other armaments projects, yet the mishaps have already massively damaged the reputation of the self-proclaimed reformer.
DPA
Bowsprit of the repair training ship "Gorch Fock" in Bremerhaven
A question in the affair has not yet been answered. For example, a task force in the ministry still determines who is responsible for the two decision papers with which von der Leyen subscribed to the ever increasing costs in recent years.
The Court of Auditors becomes clear. According to this, the two documents formally referred to in the Ministry's "Template for Decision" were peppered with "false or meaningless information". Behind this is nothing less than the assumption that the Leyen was deliberately deceived by officials who desperately wanted to receive the "Gorch Fock".
Papers go through many hands
So far, the ministry has only spoken cloudily of investigations into how the management documents were created and who was responsible for these papers. Then you want to "take resulting measures".
The process should not be easy. In practice, the templates for von der Leyen go through many hands, in the end the papers in front of the minister always mark the responsible department heads, usually also a secretary of state with a red paraphe.
The state secretary can no longer blame Leyen in this case, Katrin Suder has already left the ministry. But her successor also knows the cause well: Benedikt Zimmer was then head of the department for armaments issues and also drew the "Gorch Fock" paper.
The opposition warned on Friday, from the Leyen must immediately implement the demands of the examiners. "The minister has political responsibility, because of the price increases alone, she should have looked much earlier," said defense politician Tobias Lindner. He added that it was "worrying on which basis decisions are taken in the ministry."