East Germans unhappy about broken pledges

Press, 2 August 1979, Page 21

East Germans unhappy about broken pledges

By

WERNER VOLKMER

in London

The dismissal of two senior members of the East German Government indicates that the party leadership meant business when it announced in April that changes in the management of the economy were to be made. Against a background of growing consumer dissatisfaction, the party leader. Mr Erich Honecker, promised then to correct past mistakes and to face the challenges presented by ever-increasing prices for raw materials. Mr Klaus Siebold, who was esponsible for coal and energy, had to leave his post because of the severe economic damage cause by the breakdown of energy supplies during the extremely cold winter. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Kurt Fichtner) was the other man to go. He was in charge of investment and was held responsible for the mismanagement of funds by many companies which had invested in projects not approved by the Government. At the same time that Parliament announced these changes, it also appointed East Germany’s most senior economist, Mr Guenter Mittag, to the Council of State, thus extending his already formidable influence over Government matters. The dismissal of the two Ministers was approved by the East German Parliament in the same week that it was announced that industrial energy prices

will go up by around 30 per cent at the beginning of next year. In another step which has to be seen in the context of managing scarce resources, the Government decreed that regional labour exchanges will in future take over employment responsibilities previously held by companies. A recentralisati.on of decision-making has thus been forced through, designed to improve the country's economic performance. East Germany perennially. suffers from energy shortages particularly during the winter, when large sections of industry sometimes have to stop production Last year’s severe weather hit the whole of Northern Europe but East Germany seems to have been the least prepared. The country’s main energy resource, brown coal, provides four-fifths of its needs. Although Mr Fichtner’s deputy claimed: “Our equipment in the brown-coal industry has been geared towards the requirement of winter,” he had to admit later on: “The weather has been playing havoc with us.” He conceded that the big power stations had reserves for only one day before the frost struck but said: “To hold higher reserves is uneconomical.” As a result, East Germany lost about two full production days and workers had to volunteer to make up for the lost production in week-end shifts. Thus the promised three extra holidays for this year, when East Germany celebrates its

thirtieth anniversary, have been partly lost. The energy failure caused the party leader, Mr Honecker, to complain bitterly at the plenarysession of the party’s central committee in April. At the same time, he attacked the practice of many companies of investing earnings in projects outside the national plan “Thus,” he said, “resources are taken away which would earn hundreds of millions of marks if they were used within the framework of the plan.” There will be heavy economic pressure on East Germany during the next few years. More than most other East European countries, it has to rely on imports of raw materials. Energy was the country’s weakest point, even before the oil crisis. East Germany is also short of labour, and of the workers newly available for industry each year, 70 per cent have to be used on the maintenance of outmoded equipment. Moreover, the economic expectations, of East Germans, their longing for a comparable standard of living to that of West Germany, have been deliberately raised by the party leadership since Mr Honecker succeeded Waiter Ulbricht in 1971. But the party has been unable to deliver. The similarity to events in 1970, when a harsh winter lead to equally severe economic losses, cannot be overlooked. This time quick results are needed because the country’s labour force is deeply dissatisfied. — 0.F.N.5., Copyright.