The crisis reports on certain issues are almost overwhelming. According to the Ministry of the Interior in North Rhine-Westphalia, the district governments in the state are completely overwhelmed with their tasks – the accommodation of refugees as well as the tasks in connection with the energy transition.
Ministry of the Interior: Tasks such as supporting the energy transition are now too challenging
“Many employees in the five district governments of North Rhine-Westphalia are apparently at the end of their strength and in the thinly staffed offices hardly able to carry out tasks such as housing refugees or supporting the energy transition. “The limit of the resilience of the district governments has long been reached and has now been exceeded in many areas,” writes NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) in a fire letter to the other state ministers, about which the “Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” (Monday edition) reports.
In the letter, Reul calls on his cabinet colleagues from the CDU and Greens to “examine even more intensively” whether the district governments still have to be called in for new tasks at all. “The workforce is too short to cover all requirements promptly and in the desired quality and quantity,” writes Reul. In addition, many of the employees in these administrations are “due to the high stress situation at the end of their health and performance and are increasingly absent.” Some tasks could “not be performed at all” at times.
The district governments would have received many additional jobs in 2021 and 2022 due to the increasing volume of tasks. However, these were “not nearly enough”, according to Reul. As examples of additional tasks, the minister cites taking in and accommodating refugees from Ukraine, managing the energy transition, the early phase-out of lignite in the Rhenish mining area, expanding all-day care for school children and paying heating cost subsidies.”
Report with material from the dts news agency
Photo: Herbert Reul, via dts news agency