Legislative body reopens debates. - Toepffer suggests that Weil could have prevented a committee of inquiry.
According to Dirk Toepffer, a CDU politician, Stephan Weil, the Minister President of Niedersachsen (SPD), could've prevented the Parliamentary Investigation Committee concerning Salary Plus for one of his aides. In an interview with "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" (NOZ), Toepffer shared his thoughts: "I am certain that this investigation committee could've been skipped. If the Minister President had been more open to opposing views, matters could've been managed differently."
Following the questioning of the initial witnesses, Toepffer delivered his initial thoughts. He expressed, "In this case, there were indeed miscalculations that I can't comprehend."
During the time of the grand coalition in Lower Saxony, Toepffer understood that there was "a very efficient and well-coordinated control system" in the state chancellery, which should've prevented such mishaps. He was also acquainted with Jörg Mielke, the head of the state chancellery, as someone who would operate "very carefully." "In this situation, it's evident that a mechanism has been disrupted. I don't understand why," said Toepffer in a chat with NOZ.
Lower Saxony's Finance Minister, Gerald Heere, was summoned as a witness in the investigation committee on Thursday. He mentioned he was unfamiliar with the Weil aide before her appointment and gathered knowledge about the employee during the budget draft last summer. He was not linked to the retroactive salary hike.
The committee is examining the question of whether the increased salary for the woman was lawful. The CDU opposes the move, calling it a "salary scandal" since the regulations of long-established administrative practice supposedly were altered for a single person. The state chancellery refuted the claim that the larger payment was illegal. In conjunction with the increased salary of Weil's significant aide, the public prosecutor's office in Hanover has been probing since this week, suspecting embezzlement against unknown individuals.
