Three years ago, Franziska Giffey’s husband Karsten Giffey gave up his job as a veterinarian at the Berlin State Office for Health and Social Affairs (Lageso) after allegations of fraud against him were made. As the news portal “Business Insider” now reports, he now has a new job in Saxony-Anhalt: near Magdeburg he works again as a veterinarian in the administration of the Jerichower Land district. A spokeswoman confirmed: “Dr. Giffey is employed in a fixed-term TVöD employment relationship in the public veterinary service.”
In January 2020, “Business Insider” reported allegations that Karsten Giffey had given false information about his working hours. The veterinarian at Lageso is said to have cheated systematically and intentionally with his working hours and billed for business trips that are said to have never taken place. Specifically, he is said to have declared a private holiday trip to Greece as a business trip and possibly also charged it as such.
Karsten Giffey is said to have given unauthorized lectures and seminars 54 times during his working hours in 2016. In total, he was accused of more than 151 hours of unexcused absence. Giffey was due to lose his civil servant status, but forestalled a decision before the disciplinary process was completed and asked for his own dismissal. He paid back the damage incurred in the amount of 3,000 euros, the public prosecutor’s office stopped fraud proceedings against payment of 10,000 euros.
Franziska and Karsten Giffey got married in 2008, and their son was born a year later. Franziska Giffey, who was still Federal Minister for Family Affairs at the time, answered questions about the allegations with her standard answer: “I do not comment on personal matters of family members. I thought so from the start. And it stays that way.”
Since the repeated parliamentary elections in September 2021, the SPD politician has been the governing mayor of Berlin. She is currently exploring the possibility of forming a new government with the election winner, the CDU, and her previous coalition partners, the Greens and the Left.
