Discount giant Aldi 'took government subsidies'
Published: 7 May 12 15:26 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/money/20120507-42395.html
German discount supermarket giant Aldi, which has consistently made its owners the richest men in the country, has been taking government subsidies to train employees, it emerged at the weekend.
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Information officially requested from the Federal Office for Goods Transport (BAG) did show that Aldi training was being paid for with government funds, but details were scarce.
“The requested information concerns details which have not been approved for the public, and due to a request for secrecy from Aldi, cannot be released,” the BAG statement sent to Spiegel said.
Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer, under whose remit the BAG falls, refused to comment, while his staff merely said that, “as long as Aldi Nord, and Süd, meet the eligibility criteria for the subsidy, they are justified in receiving it.”
Green MP Valerie Wilms, who submitted a parliamentary question to try to uncover how much Aldi was getting, was told that the way BAG handled data was such that it was difficult to see how much individual companies were getting.
“It is aggravating as an MP, to have to have to poke around in the dark and not get clear information about what is done with tax payer’s money and subsidies,” she said.
“The subsidies should be helping with training and development – not to pep up the savings programme of a discounter. It would be outrageous if a billion-euro firm like Aldi was actually tapping into this money,” she told Der Spiegel.
The Local/jcw
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Your comments about this article:
Everyone of no consequence will have no idea of where their tax dollars are going, who is sending it there, and what is being done with it once it get there.
It appears to be a perfect system for keeping everyone of no consequence in the dark, and it appears to be working quite well, except for this little slip up. So lets not muck it up by demanding all that information, let us just keep it between our rich elected officials and our rich corporation owners, it will be their little secret.
wa