In the case of the Upper Austrian ÖVP Senior Citizens Association, which received almost two million euros in corona aid from the “Non-Profit Organizations Support Fund” (NPO), the NEOS does not want to let go. Their deputy club president Niki Scherak has now announced a new parliamentary inquiry to find out if something similar has happened in the other eight states.
After a NEOS request, it was announced on Wednesday that the Upper Austrian Seniors Association has raised almost two million euros in corona aid from Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) NPO fund – although parties and their sub-organizations are excluded from it.
The Upper Austrian Seniors Association argued that it had not requested funding as a party organization but for its association of the same name. Kogler has already announced that he will investigate any claims for compensation.
Follow-up investigations into the federal states announced
Scherak is now announcing a follow-up request from NEOS to find out how things are going in the other eight states. “The Vice-Chancellor, who according to media reports now has his own doubts as to whether the funding of the Senior Citizens’ Association was lawful, has certainly already obtained this data and should therefore reveal it now, not just in two months. After all, it is about taxpayers’ money, so taxpayers have a right to know quickly if there is any evidence in the rest of Austria that money has flowed into a party’s sub-organizations,” the deputy NEOS club president explained to the APA.
Scherak: ‘Republic not a self-service shop’
In any case, Scherak finds the ÖVP’s argument that the “Verein OÖ Seniorenbund” is not identical to the ÖVP sub-organization Seniorenbund “outrageous”: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then if the chairman is the same, the manager is the same and the members are mostly the same then it is probably one and the same organization The ÖVP must finally learn that they too have to abide by rules and laws and that the Republic is not a self-service shop is.”
Source: Krone
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