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It is difficult to prove whether Olaf Scholz deliberately looked away in the
Wirecard affair. What is certain, however, is that he would have been able to
contain the damage caused to shareholders and the German economy if he had
looked more consciously in good time. And that would have been his duty as the
Federal Minister of Finance. The information he received was so alarming a year
and a half ago that Scholz should have done everything possible to forcefully
expose the Wirecard fraud system.
Instead of accelerating the investigation, Scholz ’State Secretary Wolfgang
Schmidt promoted Wirecard’s market entry a year ago in China. The Federal
Minister of Finance could have shown in the early phase of the Bafin
investigation that he had learned from bad experiences. Even as Mayor of
Hamburg, he hadn't cut a good figure in the cum-ex scandal surrounding
Warburg-Bank due to his hesitant attitude.
For the chancellor's ambitions of the SPD politician - if they were ever
realistic - this is another setback. A lack of feeling for the situation is the
least you have to accuse him of. Politicians from the opposition parties
are pressing for further information.
In the Wirecard scandal, the opposition increases the pressure on Federal
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) - politicians from the FDP, the Greens and
the Left are pushing for clarification. A spokesman for Scholz confirmed that
measures to reform financial supervision should be launched as soon as possible
- they are currently still being voted on within the federal government.
Already informed about investigations in February 2019
According to his ministry, Scholz had already been informed on February 19, 2019
that Bafin's financial supervisory authority at the Dax company Wirecard "was
investigating in all directions for market manipulation, that is, both against
those responsible at Wirecard AG and against people in whom information on
participation was involved of market manipulations ".
Left-wing boss Bernd Riexinger demanded that Scholz "urgently explain why the
references to inconsistencies at Wirecard, but also to the problems in the
supervisory architecture as a whole, have been ignored in his ministry for so
long".
Greens: more powers for the Bafin
Green member of the Bundestag Danyal Bayaz criticized that Scholz has so far
avoided a discussion in the Bundestag. However, the failures would have to be
dealt with - also in order to better set up Bafin's financial supervision.
This must be given more powers so that it is feared in the financial markets in
the future.
FDP proposes committee of inquiry
The Free Democrats would now "try again to provide clarification through a
comprehensive set of questions and in a special session of the Finance Committee
of the Bundestag," said Florian Toncar, the group's fiscal spokesman.
If the open points and contradictions could not be cleared up in this way, "in
our opinion a parliamentary committee of inquiry would make sense". The German
public, especially the many injured investors, would be entitled to "learn what
the Wirecard supervision really did."
Ex-board still fleeting
Wirecard filed for bankruptcy at the end of June after the company had to admit
that the 1.9 billion euros of cash on the balance sheet that were allegedly held
in Asian bank accounts could not be found. Bafin President Felix Hufeld
described the events as a "shame" for Germany. As a consequence of the balance
sheet scandal, Scholz has announced a reform of German financial supervision.
Ex-Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek is still volatile. The "Spiegel" reported
on Friday that Marsalek apparently had previously unknown connections to the
Caribbean state of Grenada.
Isaan News has obtained information that Marsalek has
designed Wirecard to support much more then Fraud and Money Laundering. Details
will be released soon. |
