“As required by law, I ordered that all documents be transferred to the State Archives” – with these words former Health Minister Beate Hartinger-Klein commented on the accusation that she had shredded files. She doesn’t know what happened to the paper documents. She didn’t pack any boxes.
Available documents show, for example, an email from an official in May 2019 to two colleagues at the Ministry of Health, which shows that he contacted a cabinet employee of the former minister “to pack paper documents under lock and key in archive boxes to the state archives”.
It turned out that “all paper from the offices of the FBM cabinet (federal minister, note) was destroyed on a large scale. (Data protection container removed)”
The official also learned that the cabinet manager called the archives to announce “that no physical documents are expected from our department.”
The only exceptions were ‘ELAK datasets’, i.e. electronic files that were also transferred to the state archives. However, these are blocked for 25 years and only Hartinger-Klein can grant access. But so far she has refused.
“Where it is not documented, it is difficult for us to check”
Criticism of the lack of access to files from the time when Hartinger-Klein was minister was already criticized on Tuesday evening by President of the Court of Audit, Margit Kraker, in the ‘ZiB2’: ‘Where there is no documentation, I find it difficult to check (….).”
People were surprised, “because this involved a consultancy contract that was ultimately awarded to a consultant for 10.6 million euros, and we could not find that in the documentation.”
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
