Germans are outraged: Manipulation by civil servants

Patrick Strauch, his Logistics partner Frank Elitz, along with some employees, sat in prison for nine months and were released in 2023 after a court judged the Tax Office of Chemnitz, a city in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, for fraudulently tampering with the tax matters of Strauch's twenty-year-old company, causing the closure and arrest of the responsible people.

They now fight in Dresden court for compensation of € 4,3 Mio. Publicly asking other people affected by the wrongdoings of German civil servants to join their cause and never give up fighting for their rights.

The system can not make mistakes; only humans can. Systems may not be suited to fix issues and need adjustment, while people bring them to life. Unlike former US President Barack Obama, in Osu Castle, Accra, said to the gathered international media „Africa does not need strong men, but strong institutions“ he missed the crucial point that institutions are dead without people working on their mandate and structure provided by politicians, suggested and initiated by civil servants to suit their demands.

Edgar J. Hoover founded the FBI. In Germany, Reinhard Gehlen, a spy during the NS regime, initiated the BND German Intelligence Service and put, like Hoover, his mark on the service. Hoover kept a file about John F. and Robert Kennedy, able to blackmail both when and if he so wished.

In case the plaintiffs are successful and Sachsen-Anhalt will have to pay € 4,3 Mio. of any amount thereof, German taxpayers have to pay the debt judgment, not the civil servants involved. By German law, they will be removed from their current position to another position inside the civil service.

Accountants, doctors, pharmacists, Security companies, kindergarteners, lawyers, lorry drivers and common citizens causing harm to others with no intent but accidentally are covered by liability insurance. For certain professions, without such cover they can not practise in their profession.

In the public sector, civil servants cause accidental harm to members of society, yet personally the people acting do not need mandatory liability insurance. When politicians cause harm to society, society has to bear the cost and consequences. Politicians and ministerial civil servants work hand in hand. Improvements are hard to come by based on interdependence. While politicians are long gone, civil servants still work on the same job. Government vehicles are not insured. Accidents and failures of cars are paid for by taxpayers' money.

In Africa, governments do not provide better regulations to protect their citizens and companies from failures of their civil servants. In cases where governments are judged to pay compensation, they tap into taxpayers' money while taxpayers did not cause the problem in the first place.

As people, not systems, act, African countries have a long way to go to fix the values and mentality of civil servants, including themselves and work hard on their professionalism.