Tuesday, June 15, 2021
Pushed ahead with vaccination
Halles OB provisionally removed from office
In the spring, Halle’s Lord Mayor has himself vaccinated against Corona, although it is not his turn yet. For this, the administrative office is now removing the politician from the position of the party. In addition to the violation of the vaccination sequence, there are other allegations against Wiegand in the room.
Against the background of the vaccination affair surrounding Halle’s mayor Bernd Wiegand, the state administration office of Saxony-Anhalt has temporarily removed the non-party local politician from office. Wiegand’s monthly salary will be cut by half, as the authority in Halle announced. With the order, the mayor is also temporarily forbidden from entering the city’s official buildings.
The allegations against Wiegand because of the vaccination affair have been preoccupying the courts and state authorities for months. Wiegand had admitted that, contrary to the prioritization, he had received a vaccination against the corona virus in January. Several city councils and members of the emergency response team were also vaccinated.
The public prosecutor’s office had his office searched in February. At the same time, the State Administration Office initiated disciplinary proceedings against Wiegand in order to investigate possible violations of duty due to irregularities in compliance with the vaccination sequence.
Accordingly, allegations were also examined, including influencing the occurrence of several city council meetings, the use of official resources for private purposes and the issuing of instructions for subsequent changes to official documents.
Wiegand has already been tried for infidelity
“The gravity of the alleged breach of service is the reason for the temporary dismissal, in addition to the risk of impairment of the investigation as well as the operation of the service,” explained the state administration office.
Regardless of this, the city council of Halle forbade him to continue his official business in April. Wiegand, on the other hand, took action before the Halle administrative court, which confirmed the suspension by the city council at the beginning of June.
Wiegand himself justified the early vaccinations with the fact that leftover vaccine doses should be saved from being thrown away. He vehemently rejects the allegations of pushing ahead. At the same time, he made contradicting statements about the allegations and initially claimed, for example, that the vaccine candidates had been selected by a kind of random generator. This was not true.
Wiegand has been Lord Mayor of Halle since 2012. In October 2019, the business administration graduate was re-elected. The native Braunschweig was already controversial back then. He was on trial for infidelity because he is said to have wrongly classified close employees in higher pay levels. But he was finally acquitted.
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