Cologne donation affair

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The Cologne donation affair , also known as the garbage affair or garbage scandal , was about the collection of donations by the Cologne SPD between 1994 and 1999 as a bribe to secure their approval for the construction of the controversial waste incineration plant in Cologne's Niehl district . Donations amounting to at least 480,000 DM were not recorded in the statement of accounts , contrary to the political party law , thereby violating the obligation to publish. As a punishment, the SPD lost a sum equal to twice the illegal donations. The Cologne local politicians Klaus Heugel and Norbert Rüther from the SPD were both sentenced in 2008 to probation for bribery.

donate

Norbert Rüther , managing director and later chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and the treasurer at the time, Manfred Biciste , smuggled large donations that were required to be published into the party fund by simultaneously issuing bogus receipts to numerous party members for small donations that were supposed to come from them. The large donations are to come from companies that had benefited economically from the construction of the Cologne-Niehl waste incineration plant, in particular plant manufacturer Steinmüller LCS and Trienekens AG , which benefited from the incineration plant both as a co-operator and as a supplier. Trienekens AG boss Hellmut Trienekens is also said to have given the SPD mayoral candidate Klaus Heugel a cash donation of 150,000 DM in 1999 to finance his upcoming election campaign. According to the court at Heugel's trial in 2008, this payment came in return for Heugel's support for Trienekens in the partial privatization of the Cologne waste management company.

Criminal law consequences

In 2004 the former managing director of AVG Cologne, Ulrich Eisermann, was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months imprisonment for infidelity and corruption. This judgment was declared legally binding by the BGH in 2010. In 2010 Hellmut Trienekens was sentenced to a total of two years probation in four cases of infidelity. The former Cologne SPD local politicians Klaus Heugel and Norbert Rüther were both sentenced in 2008 for this: Heugel to 21 months probation for particularly severe corruption, Rüthen to 18 months probation for involvement in bribery and bribery of parliamentarians.

"Supply" Cologne politicians

According to statements by AVG Cologne managing director Ulrich Eisermann, Cologne city politicians have made financial support for party colleagues a condition of their approval for the construction of the Cologne-Niehl waste incineration plant. CDU parliamentary group chairman Albert Schröder has called for "consideration" from Councilor Egbert Bischoff. On the SPD side, its parliamentary group leader at the time, Klaus Heugel , is said to have insisted that party comrade Stephan Gatter should be "housed". Gatter was hired in 1992 in the public department of the AVG Cologne, and was also chairman of the works council there in 1994. His employment relationship with AVG Cologne continues, although he has also been a member of the SPD in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia since 2000.

Controversy surrounding the construction of the Cologne-Niehl waste incineration plant

Overall, the construction of the Cologne-Niehl waste incineration plant cost DM 820 million. A total of almost DM 30 million in bribes is said to have flowed. According to critics such as the citizens' initiative KIMM and the auditing office of the city of Cologne, the MVA was built much larger than necessary - at the expense of the Cologne fee payers and without a warning from the city administration or district president Franz-Josef Antwerpes . The city of Cologne had approved and commissioned an incineration plant for the disposal of Cologne garbage with a capacity of only 421,000 tons. In the second year of operation in 1999, however, 500,000 tons were burned, in 2003 650,000 tons and in 2010 even 723,000 tons. The full capacity is given today at 725,000 tons. In order to be able to operate economically, the MVA Köln-Niehl has to import garbage from Germany and Europe. The prices it charges for this are far lower than those guaranteed by the city of Cologne as "statutory prices". In the end, the garbage fee payers in Cologne subsidize the incineration of hundreds of thousands of tons of imported garbage every year.

See also

literature

  • Peter Berger u. Axel Spilcker: The scandal. The garbage, the city and the donations , Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8321-7861-9
  • Christoph Kotowski: The Cologne garbage scandal. How a communal affair turned into a nationwide disaster , in: Bodo Hombach (Ed.): Scandal Politics! Politics scandal! , Marburg 2012, pp. 166–172
  • Werner Rügener: Colonia Corrupta. Globalization, privatization and corruption in the shadow of the Cologne clique , 6th edition, Münster 2010, ISBN 978-3-89691-525-2
  • Frank Überall: The clique in the political culture of Cologne , Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-416-03125-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c judgment in Cologne “garbage affair” , RP-online
  2. ↑ a b garbage scandal - Cologne, how it stinks and cracks , Die Zeit
  3. ↑ a b The Cologne Bribe Scandal - Brazen greed, criminal energy and social irresponsibility , wsws.org, March 23, 2002, accessed on December 20, 2015
  4. ^ Judgment in the Cologne garbage scandal - imprisonment for managers, acquittal for politicians , Der Spiegel
  5. ↑ a b Cologne garbage scandal: BGH declares judgment to be final , Focus
  6. ↑ Lessons on supply cases , taz
  7. ^ State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia: Stephan Gatter
  8. ↑ Garbage scandal - Cologne, how it stinks and cracks , Die Zeit
  9. ↑ AVG Cologne - key figures
  10. ↑ a b Waste disposal: Keeping garbage fees down , ksta.de, March 26, 2012, accessed on December 4, 2017
  11. ↑ Garbage scandal - Cologne, how it stinks and cracks , Die Zeit