Hamburg (dpa / lno) – The Hamburg Court of Auditors has criticized the use of the corona emergency loans by the red-green Senate in parts. In individual cases, measures financed with this would have no material connection with the pandemic, could probably not be implemented during the pandemic or would have been carried out without Corona, according to a special report submitted by the Court of Auditors to the citizenship and the Senate on Monday. In general, the Court of Auditors also considers credit-financed Corona aid programs to be useful in order to stabilize the economy in this emergency situation and to help those affected.
According to the debt brake, however, borrowing requires that the funds are only used for measures that are factually related to the pandemic and its consequences. In addition, they may only be used during the emergency situation period determined by the citizens until the end of 2022. In addition, nothing may be financed that is or should have been planned in the budget anyway. The Court of Auditors examined 20 measures from the Hamburg Economic Stabilization Program (HWSP) for 2021 and 2022 as well as 22 measures from central budget funds for 2020.
The objections were, among other things, the procurement of polo shirts and replacement cell phones for the police or the financing of the merely reorganized social counseling for long-term unemployed people who lack an objective connection with the pandemic. The financial increase in the program to upgrade urban spaces or the use of the funds for the renovation of the fisherman’s house in Blankenese, which has been planned for years, was criticized as inadmissible.
According to the Court of Auditors, the tax authorities have already declared in four cases that they will forego financing through the emergency loans. “It is necessary that the constitutional criteria of the debt brake are fully complied with in the pandemic in order to keep the burden on the future as low as possible,” said Auditor General Stefan Schulz. “Emergency loans are not there for measures that were already intended or that do not serve to fight pandemics.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 211213-99-363584 / 2
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