BERLIN, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- An investigative committee on the allegedly wrongful award of contracts to external consultants in the German Ministry of Defense initiated its investigation on Thursday.
According to the German federal audit office (Bundesrechnungshof), the Defense Ministry under the supervision of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has spent at least 200 million euros (225.7 million U.S. dollars) on external consultants during 2015 and 2016.
Some of the contracts allegedly have been awarded illegally while the German defense ministry is also being accused of suffering from nepotism.
Consultancy contracts on such "a large scale" and in some cases even without contracts would not be awarded without a political order from above, said Matthias Hoehn, security policy spokesman of the Left party in the German parliament. Defense Minister Von der Leyen would have to "take the responsibility for this consultant scandal".
At the beginning of February, the German government announced, following a request of left-wing politician Hoehn, that at least 1.2 billion euros had been spent on external consultants between 2006 and 2018.
However, these figures were not complete as many records of awarded contracts would not be needed to be kept for more than five years.(1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars)
