Media corruption in Germany: The secret contracts of ARD and ZDF about luxury company cars

Berlin - After the sacked RBB boss Patricia Schlesinger, WDR director Tom Buhrow (annual salary: 413,000 euros) also admitted to being chauffeured at the expense of the fee payers in a luxury company car with massage seats. But did the new ARD chairman and other officials of the public broadcasters also receive the "government discount" for this?

Schlesinger received 70 percent of this reduction, although she does not belong to the government, but her broadcaster is supposed to control it with critical reporting. However, the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the Audi A8 were covered by a non-disclosure clause. According to Business Insider, RBB undertook to “maintain confidentiality towards third parties regarding the prices/delivery conditions granted to it”. The conditions only became public in connection with the numerous allegations against the director.

Official car like a state secret
Compared to the world, most of the institutions now referred to the non-disclosure clause and refused to provide information about the conditions under which they received the company car for their management team. The contractual conditions and costs for the cars of the directors, and department heads are guarded like a state secret by almost all public broadcasters.

Only SWR and Radio Bremen explicitly deny having purchased their company vehicles with a "government discount". The rest remain silent.

Source: Junge Freiheit