Outsourcing row

"It is irresponsible to commission a large corporate law firm instead of using the government's legal experts," Zypries told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.

Her comments referred to Guttenberg's decision to have a new law for the state receivership of ailing banks drawn up by an outside firm of attorneys.

Zypries, a Social Democrat, said the matter was particularly grave given that the economics ministry is not even responsible for insolvency law.

"It is a waste of taxpayers money," she said, adding that highly qualified lawyers at the ministry of justice, which is responsible for such affairs, were currently working on a draft law themselves.

The wrong kitty

Green Party head, Renate Kuenast, joined in the condemnation of Guttenberg's actions, saying she would like to know exactly how much the CSU economics minister had paid the Linklater firm for the proposed law.

"He could have financed it from his election campaign fund," she told the Berlin newspaper, "but not from the federal budget."

She went on to say that the case should be brought before the audit court.

Under the magnifying glass

A report in another Berlin paper, Der Tagesspiegel, due for publication on Thursday, says the parliamentary budget committee has called on ministries which have commissioned such external work since the inception of the grand coalition, to submit detailed information, including costing, by the weekend.

The chairman of the budget committee, Otto Fricke of the liberal Free Democrats, told Der Tagesspiegel that he had put the request to parliament on Wednesday.

"I want to know to what degree external consultants have been used by the grand coalition, how influential they have been in each department and how much they have cost the taxpayer."

The outsourcing trend

The use of external experts has become increasingly widespread over the past few years. The Berliner Zeitung says the government has, by its own admission, sunk around 2.5 million euros ($3.5 million) into outsourced legislative work since 2006.

It says no small fraction of that - more than a million euros - was paid to external consultants by the ministry of transport for the development of a law on the new organization of Germany's railways.

The environment ministry allegedly also forked out large sums for the drafting of laws on nuclear waste disposal and renewable energies.

tkw/dpa/AP/AFP

Editor: Chuck Penfold