If the SPÖ and FPÖ have their way, a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the events at the Covid 19 financing agency should now be set up. The NEOS also reacted again with criticism. The excitement, on the other hand, is hardly understandable for the ÖVP-Wirtschaftsbund and the Wirtschaftskammer (WKÖ).
“The Court of Auditors’ report confirms that COFAG is an unnecessary and highly opaque construction and was obviously only set up as a self-service shop for Turkish minions and advisors close to the VP,” said SPÖ Court of Auditors spokeswoman Karin Greiner in a broadcast. A parliamentary review is therefore now inevitable. The Social Democratic Business Association of Vienna also sees major economic damage caused by COFAG.
The FPÖ sees the “black box” COFAG as a “hot candidate for the next parliamentary committee of inquiry”. “The final report presented today by the Court of Auditors on COFAG confirms all our allegations that we have made from the outset about this money distribution construct outside of any parliamentary control,” said FPÖ MP Christian Hafenecker.
For NEOS finance spokeswoman Karin Doppelbauer, COFAG is “a grotesquely flawed design by the turquoise-green federal government”. With COFAG, “billions of taxpayers’ money was thrown out the window irresponsibly and oblivious to the future” – money that is missing to relieve the current crisis.
The ÖVP-Wirtschaftsbund sees things differently. “The introduction of COFAG was absolutely the right decision. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was essential to act as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Secretary General Kurt Egger. “The corona pandemic put economic and personal livelihoods at risk. The work of COFAG saved them and was therefore a mainstay of the corona crisis management in Austria,” he argued.
The General Secretary of the Economic Chamber, Karlheinz, sounded a similar horn. COFAG’s clear goal was “to maintain the solvency of our companies as best as possible, to bridge liquidity difficulties caused by the crisis – and thus to prevent bankruptcies and to keep jobs.” These goals have been achieved.
Source: Nachrichten
