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Munich (dpa / lby) - Bavaria's Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek (CSU) defended the purchase of expensive FFP protective masks at the beginning of the corona pandemic in the spring of last year.
"It was a matter of life and death," said Holetschek, describing the situation at the time.
FFP-2 masks were primarily purchased at prices below five euros, Holetschek said that only one of 59 sales contracts were purchased for prices up to just under 9 euros.
This is significantly cheaper than the average price of 16.71 euros for an FFP-2 mask given by the federal government at the time.
At the top, the federal government even paid over 35 euros.
The Bavarian Ministry of Health did not pay such prices, said Holetschek.
The minister pointed out that there was a glaring shortage of material around the world at the time in question.
The manufacturers in Asia broke away as suppliers because of their own concern, but demand has exploded worldwide.
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Overall, the Ministry of Health and the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) ordered material with a total volume of over 400 million euros between February and June 2020, including 150 million protective and surgical masks worth over 270 million euros and more than 84 million disposable gloves for over 18 million euros.
When searching for the scarce material, there were also helpful tips from politics, said Holetschek.
However, the Ministry of Health has never paid agency commissions.
The allegations on the table against MPs, for example, would have to be examined in the interests of the greatest possible transparency.
The Bavarian SPD in particular had criticized the state government's purchasing practices.
Purchase prices of 8.90 euros per mask are too high.
So far there has been no public allocation of prices to individual manufacturers or suppliers.
Without this no parliamentary control would be possible, criticized SPD country chief Florian von Brunn.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210504-99-464758 / 2