By Gunnar Schupelius
In an expensive report on the Schlesinger scandal, there is not much more than was already known. Once again, the RBB management gives the impression that they are not interested in a fresh start, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The RBB hit everyone in the head: A system of incredibly high salaries in the management floor flew up, an unparalleled enrichment came to light. Director Patricia Schlesinger was fired on August 22: suspicion of false accounting, corruption, nepotism.
RBB’s compliance officer commissioned the Hamburg law firm Lutz/Abel to investigate. The investigation is expected to last until the end of the year. The law firm bills the broadcaster around EUR 250,000 per month, i.e. a total of more than EUR 1 million, which is paid for with license fees.
Is this effort justified? There are serious doubts about that.
On October 19, the Lutz/Abel law firm submitted the first part of its report. And lo and behold: there is not much more in it than journalists had previously revealed, above all the colleagues from “Business Insider” who uncovered the scandal.
In this first part of the report it can be read that Schlesinger gave private dinners, which she then billed to the station, and that she traveled privately with her husband Gerhard Spörl to the Sheriffs’ Ball in London and billed this trip as a business trip. Ms. Schlesinger’s extremely high salary and the enormous additional payments were not lawful.
The lawyers state that the director was not bound “to the internal guidelines and regulations of the RBB”. She was out of control. That too was already known. And when the lawyers finally demand that the RBB should better control its directorship, this has also been demanded by members of the Brandenburg state parliament and the Berlin House of Representatives.
For 250,000 euros a month, the lawyers did not find out much more than was already known and what the legal department of RBB could have found out themselves.
This form of reappraisal is a farce, a spoof of the public, loosely based on the motto: We’ll have it investigated, you pay, even if nothing comes of it.
It’s been like this since the beginning of the Schlesinger affair in August: the successor director should come from outside and clean up the RBB, everyone agreed. But then came Katrin Vernau. She didn’t come from the outside, but from the inside, was one of WDR’s top officials for seven years, was the right hand of director Tom Buhrow, who knew about the system with which Schlesinger enriched herself and her entourage.
And Ralf Roggenbuck, who has been a member of this body since 2019, was appointed chairman of the RBB broadcasting council, which is to control the directorship.
No, this is not an enlightenment, not a new beginning. There are people at work who want to secure their privileges. Only the state parliaments can put an end to the hustle and bustle with a new state contract for the RBB that cuts salaries and stops waste.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]