Berlin's refugee 'masterplan' hit with suspicion of cronyism

http://www.dw.com/en/berlins-refugee-masterplan-hit-with-suspicion-of-cronyism/a-19127875

Berlin's mayor has been forced to answer questions in parliament over the decision to grant a lucrative contract to the consultancy McKinsey. The US firm has hired one of the mayor's old party colleagues.

Berlin's refugee 'masterplan' hit with suspicion of cronyism
Ben Knight
18.03.2016

The list of companies turning a profit from Germany's influx of refugees grew a little longer in early March, when US consultancy McKinsey signed a 238,000-euro ($268,000) contract to come up with a plan to integrate the city's influx of 80,000 refugees.

Now that deal, much criticized a month ago because it had been handed to the company without a tender process, has gained an extra bitter aftertaste. McKinsey, who had worked pro bono for three months to deal with the chaos at the health and social affairs authority (LaGeSo), admitted this week that former politician Lutz Diwell, from the same party as Berlin's mayor, Michael Müller (pictured), has been hired to work on the job. Now suspicions are being aired by local media that Müller's government helped the mayor's old comrade to the lucrative position.

The suspicion turned into a fraught exchange in Berlin's state parliament on Thursday, when opposition MPs demanded that Müller appear in the chamber to answer questions on the deal. Müller had been excused from the session because of a conference elsewhere, but the representatives from the Left, the Greens, and the Pirate party successfully called for the session to be suspended until Müller could appear.

Müller arrived in the early afternoon - "visibly annoyed," according to the "Tagesspiegel" newspaper - and admitted to the parliament that his office had known "during the course of January" that there had been "further contact between Lutz Diwell and McKinsey." That was several weeks before the contract with the city was signed, though the government claims it made the decision to give the contract to McKinsey in late December.