Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The costs for the state’s own pavilion at the world exhibition in Dubai have skyrocketed – from three to 15 million euros. The matter turned into an affair in which the Ministry of Economic Affairs, headed by Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut (CDU), was the focus. The investigative committee of the Stuttgart state parliament presented its final report on Monday.
The SPD again demanded the resignation of Hoffmeister-Kraut. The CDU politician operated a devastating mismanagement, said the SPD chairman Daniel Born. Your house was naively stumbled into contracts. CDU chairwoman Marion Gentges spoke of misjudgments. But the whole thing is not a scandal. The demand for resignation is nothing more than an election campaign. A new state parliament will be elected in the south-west in mid-March.
A private project company had actually wanted to finance the pavilion entirely with the help of companies. She had declared it as a project “from business for business”. But because sponsors withdrew their commitments, the country stepped in with its green-black government. At first she only wanted to accompany the process politically. The former managing director of the project company had signed the contract with the exhibition organizers in Dubai. As a result, the country eventually became a contractual partner through the back door.
The FDP representative Gabriele Reich-Gutjahr saw Hoffmeister-Kraut overwhelmed. At no point did she have control of the Expo project. The CDU politician had admitted mistakes in her department in the investigation committee, but no personal responsibility. The AfD politician Carola Wolle spoke of CDU clanships because the managing director of the project company, who has now been shut down, maintained good contacts with the smaller of the two government factions. The Greens chairwoman Andrea Lindlohr said it would have been better to clarify in advance whether the state would not better support the project from its own resources from the start.
CDU Education Minister Susanne Eisenmann is said to have campaigned for the project several times and, as the coordinator of the CDU government work, was also involved in decisions about the assumption of liabilities by the state. You really pulled the strings, criticized Born. He and the other committee members did not put the country’s appearance in Dubai up for discussion. Gentges added that the pavilion is a great opportunity for the country’s economy, especially in difficult times.
The world exhibition is to take place from October 1, 2021 to the end of March 2022. Baden-Württemberg is the only federal state with its own pavilion in Dubai. The total costs now estimated include the construction and operation of the pavilion and the associated exhibition. The cost of the committee is around EUR 200,000. 25 witnesses were heard and over 100,000 e-mails and 42 folders with files were viewed.
The committee chief Jürgen Filius (Greens) demanded that in the future, in the case of projects with significant national interests, the state should clarify whether it could better take responsibility for these on its own. Furthermore, when cooperating with third parties, attention must be paid to their reliability.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210131-99-245383 / 4
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