Do you remember the story of Ebberød Bank? It was originally a folk comedy from 1923, which was made into a film in 1943 in the middle of the Second World War with Osvald Helmuth in the lead role as master tailor Vipperup, who becomes director of the newly started Ebberup Bank.
He introduces a deposit rate of eight percent and a lending rate of four percent, while he himself receives five percent of the turnover for taking on the job as bank director – not of the profit. Of course, it ends badly, and to this day you can hear the word of mouth regarding Ebberød Bank when financial dispositions go – exactly wrong.
Although the operation of the Ministry of Defense should be regarding defending the kingdom once morest external enemies, the scandals of the past several years have primarily been regarding poor financial management, which in reality has caused the Defense to collapse.
Now one might believe that with the politicians’ promises of an injection of almost DKK 200 billion. DKK over the next 10 years was gradually able to correct the sins of the past. However, it still has long prospects, and even though we are well over two years into the war in Ukraine, the operational units have not yet seen anything of the many imaginary billions.
At the same time, the soldiers flee the guard, and in the Army alone, every fourth soldier is missing. Some units have a manning of less than 50 percent, and in addition, the soldiers have to look far for basic equipment such as night fighting equipment, binoculars, radios and camouflage nets.
When the frigate “Iver Huitfeldt” had to leave for the Red Sea, the Navy had to borrow deck guns from another frigate and crew members from other ships and squadrons to make it all fit together, and when the ship finally got into battle, the ammunition was over 30 years old with a defect on every other grenade.
In order to do something regarding the situation, the Ministry of Defense’s Personnel Board launched a large-scale recruitment campaign together with the communications agency Advice in February, which will amount to 13 million. Here, money has been spent on a smart advertising and recruitment video with the title; “What we look following is totally worth it”. Just under half a million has been spent. DKK on a podcast with the comedian Christian Fuhlendorf, who in three episodes of a total duration of one hour talks regarding the Swedish Armed Forces’ officer training, just as the journalist Thomas Skov appears in a number of video spots on social media to advertise the Swedish Armed Forces.
And it would all be really nice if the recruitment campaign and the many millions of kroner were coordinated with the rest of the Ministry of Defence. But the campaign apparently isn’t, or something has just gone completely wrong in the communication.
In connection with the just concluded collective agreement negotiations in OK24, the civil servants obtained a significant salary increase, but the Ministry of Defense has estimated too low in relation to how much they might expect to have to pay for the salary increases. The wage increases already apply from April, but the Ministry of Defense will only receive full compensation from the state for the wage increases on January 1 and must therefore find the missing millions within the ministry’s own budget.
That is why massive savings and hiring freezes have now been announced across the entire Ministry of Defence. Activities such as exercises and shooting periods are cancelled, and there is also no salary to hire the many who are now responding to the massive recruitment campaign. Vacant positions are not filled in many places due to savings, and what remains are the wide-eyed employees who cannot believe their eyes and ears.
Nor does defense spokesman Alex Ahrendtsen from the Danish People’s Party.
“I am furious! I think it’s a shame for the soldiers. I think it’s a shame for the Armed Forces. And for Denmark. We have decided that we will invest almost 200 billion over the next 10 years, and then they will have to save, for God’s help, because no proper forecasts have been made. How on earth can it be connected? I do not get it. And I’m a laughing stock as defense spokesman, because the voters then think: ‘Do you even have a handle on anything in there?’,” said Alex Ahrendtsen when he was a guest on ‘Frontlinjen’ on Radio4 on Wednesday.
He also gave the answer himself:
“No, we don’t have that.”
It is pure Ebberød Bank.
2024-04-20 14:26:24
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