The Munich Transport Company’s (MVG) rental bike system is designed to make it easier for customers using local public transport to cover the much-cited “last kilometer” from the train station home. Now the rental bikes are probably more expensive for the district of Munich than originally calculated: As District Administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) announced in the district committee on Monday, the Federal Ministry for the Environment is demanding back funds of exactly 354,637.62 euros. Since a part of this payment has already been made, 209,172.85 euros are still due – and “immediately”, as it says quite clearly in a letter from the Jülich project management agency, which implements the funding program for the ministry. In addition, there is an interest payment of 7600 euros. The district will appeal against this decision.
In total, the district and the municipalities involved have so far spent a little more than 3.7 million euros on rental bikes and rental stations. Of this, less than hoped for, namely just over 3.4 million euros, was counted as eligible. According to the calculations of the ministry, this results in a subsidy amount of 2.4 million euros and not 2.6 million euros as requested by the district.
The marketing costs had not been requested and “cannot be clearly assigned to the project”.
According to the project management agency, which belongs to Forschungszentrum Jülich, there are two reasons for the complaint: On the one hand, the expenses for internal project management are almost 178,700 euros too high for eligibility, and there are also marketing costs of more than 120,000 euros “were not applied for, are not economical and cannot be clearly assigned to the project,” as the letter from Jülich says.
This is seen differently in the district administration. From there it is said that the advertising campaign was fully relied on by MVG, but their strategy was very general and not specific to the district. Also with the project management costs one does not feel responsible, but refers to the expensive consulting services of the MVG.
The chairman of the CSU district parliamentary group, Stefan Schelle, suggested defending oneself against the reclaim and taking legal action as soon as possible, because the objection period ends this Tuesday. A proposal that was finally approved unanimously by the board. It remains to be seen how great the chances of success of this lawsuit are.