Squandered Money
September 27, 2007
Bad planning, expensive media campaigns, taxpayer-funded luxury and unnecessary travels made the annual list of the German Taxpayers Group. In total, the advocacy group said the government wasted 30 billion euros ($42.4 billion) of taxpayer money. The "black book" lists 107 particularly egregious examples.
Don't cry wolf
After the media circus surrounding Bruno the bear, who wandered into Bavaria in 2006 and was eventually killed after he developed a taste for livestock, the German Environment Agency decided to take no chances when educating the public about wolves.
A media campaign to educate the public about wolves and their habits cost 300,000 euros.
That's a cost of about 15,000 euros pro wolf for the approximately 20 wolves making their homes in the states of Saxony and Brandenburg.
Statuary waste
In the city of Düsseldorf, the Academy of Arts set up a pavilion designed to imitate an ancient temple. The three-month exhibition held 15 sculptures. The government hoped ticket sales would help recoup some of the 550,000 euros it spent on the sculpture exhibition. That didn't happen.
"Today, someone would call such a thing a waste of tax money," the taxpayers group said. "In the ancient world it was perhaps called hubris."
Brussels sprouts
The German parliament opened a satellite office to deal with the European Union in Brussels in February of 2007. Instead of the originally-planned nine employees working from Belgium, the German parliament currently has 14 people in the office. That costs the German taxpayer more than 1 million euros each year.
"This expenditure is completely unnecessary," the taxpayer group said.
Relocation blues
In 2004, the Justice Minister at the time in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Wolfgang Gerhards, decided to build a new court building. The new minister, Roswitha Müller-Piepenkötter, didn't like the plans. She stopped the project and at a cost of 3 million euros.
Jet-setting public servants
An 18-member delegation from Bavarian representing farming and environment interests went on an official trip to Brazil in May at a cost of 36,000 euros. The goal: to promote "Brazilian-Bavarian ties."