26 November 2007: Massive Government Waste

According to figures compiled by its national Audit Office the German government wasted nearly one-and-a half billion pounds last year.

Examples cited in the Federal Audit Office's 2007 annual review of government spending, which found a lack of oversight in 85 percent of the cases it investigated, included:

• Renting computers for three years which could have been bought for about 85% of the cost;
  
• About 135 million pounds spent on a piece of railway track that was never built;
  
• Maintenance of an underground air surveillance bunker that serves no military purpose;
  
• The development of new seats for vehicles to carry elderly people, where the vehicles are now deemed so unsafe they can't be used on public roads.

"These are very troubling findings," the auditors said in a statement.