Nobody knows how much corona aid was wrongly paid out in Berlin
Even the Senate has no figures on the extent of the damage. Now the aim is to help again in the energy crisis. What has changed since the pandemic?
A Covid test center in BerlinBenjamin Pritzkuleit
The processing of the massive fraud in the payment of the Corona aid continues. Almost 20,000 police investigations have been initiated or are being processed. It is still unclear how high the total damage will be for the state of Berlin.
This emerges from a response from the Senate Department of Justice to a request from Deputy Sebastian Schlüsselburg (left), which is available to the Berliner Zeitung. Accordingly, 11,774 procedures were initiated for suspected fraud. In addition, there are 7,725 “suspicious applications” that are “in progress”, as it is said.
The 487 procedures for so-called billing fraud are broken down separately. What is meant is false information in the billing of corona tests by test stations in the past and this year. The judiciary was also unable to say how high the total damage might be.
The current background to the key castle request is the previously announced aid from the state of Berlin in the energy crisis. Here, too, attempts at fraud are to be expected, which again can probably only be determined afterwards and then punished.
However, the response from the administration of justice does not indicate that law enforcement authorities and courts would be better prepared for an increasing number of cases after the Corona experience. Since it is still unclear which relief measures will actually be implemented, “it is not yet possible to assess whether the experience gained from combating the fraudulent obtaining of corona aid will be transferrable,” says the answer.
Corona is an example of how difficult it can be to come to terms with the past and what consequences it can have. Only four months ago, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office stopped its investigations into the board of directors of the investment bank Berlin (IBB) with the payment of emergency corona aid. Almost exactly two years to the day after the investigation began. According to the public prosecutor, those affected cannot be accused of any criminally relevant misconduct.
In fact, the state bankers – IBB is 100 percent state-owned – acted on political instructions. In the exceptional situation caused by the pandemic, the then red-red-green Senate had promised to “enable help quickly and unbureaucratically”, and thus dispensed with an in-depth examination of the applications before payment. It should only be checked in detail afterwards.
Around the Easter weekend in 2020 alone, more than 245,000 applications were received by IBB, and around 30,000 were immediately rejected after a brief plausibility check. Only later did the public prosecutor intervene. To this day, many self-employed people pay back sums wrongly received. Either way: According to its own statements, IBB has paid out around 6.7 billion euros to around 424,000 recipients.
Despite these experiences of fraud, left-wing politicians Schlüsselburg – and with him the SPD and Greens – defended the approach of the quick and unbureaucratic pandemic aid at the time. The establishment of free test centers was also right and important. it is “shocking that there were people who wanted to criminally enrich themselves in this crisis,” says the lawyer, who is the legal policy spokesman for his group. “It strengthens trust in the rule of law that these cases are cleared up and those responsible are held accountable.”
In the current debate about the consequences of the energy price crisis, once again Schliisselburg is in favor of quick financial aid. And in view of the experiences from the Corona scams, it is clear to Schlüsselburg: “The unmistakable signal is: Don’t even try.”
It is not even certain who could expect how much money from which source. The federal government says that the energy bill for the month of December could be completely taken over before a price cap would be introduced in the spring. The state of Berlin will set aside money to be able to intervene beyond federal aid. Among other things, a supplementary budget is to be passed in November. What extent it WILL have is not yet certain.