Party's over for shamed Welteke

HE'S gone and few believe he will be back, but prosecutors probing the lavish lifestyle of Bundesbank chief Ernst Welteke have yet to write the last chapter in the latest corporate scandal to hit the country.

Welteke, 61, and well known in Germany as the Party Banker, the president of the country's central bank has stepped aside until an affair over an all-expenses-paid stay in a luxury hotel can be resolved.

Welteke, Germany's highest-paid public official and the country's representative at the European Central Bank, has been criticised for spending four nights with his family in Berlin's Adlon Hotel at the invitation of Dresdner Bank during celebrations of the euro's notes and coins launch on 1 January 2002.

That, however, may be the tip of an iceberg of extravagance. He has also admitted staying free in Vienna in 2000 as a guest of the Austrian National Bank.

He attended the lavish Opera Ball, tickets for which cost at least e200 (£132), and new evidence suggests he was entertained in a private box with all hotel expenses paid, the total cost being £11,000. The Bild Zeitung newspaper has also claimed that Welteke was again entertained at the Opera Ball in 2002 - this time by an unnamed German commercial bank. 'Again he stayed a couple of days longer than he needed to,' said Bild.

Frankfurt prosecutors are also reported to be examining his expense accounts to see if cigars, wine and restaurant meals were for clients or for him. A gourmet who has a wine collection of his own and smokes £35 Cohiba cigars, Welteke wears hand-made suits and enjoys the theatre, concerts and ballet. His salary was e350,000. The log books for his chauffeur-driven car are being examined to ascertain whether it was used for other than official business.

The affair, which could end with a court case, has come amid widespread public anger over austerity measures on health and pensions in the government's social and economic reform drive with editorials criticising Welteke's behaviour as more evidence of arrogance and a lack of accountability among Germany's elite.

The government has already said he should be retired and there is a strong public feeling he is just a fat-cat boss creaming it in increasingly hard times in Germany.