[ad_1]
Bernard Guillelmon, CEO of BLS, resigns from his position. An external study shows that BLS management already knew in the spring of 2017 that the compensation was too high, and kept it quiet.
Bernard Guillelmon resigns.
Photo: Keystone
The BLS announced the resignation of its chief executive, Bernard Guillelmon, early Friday morning. Guillelmon is already resigning as head of BLS at the end of October. Dirk Stahl, Deputy General Manager and Director of BLS Cargo, will lead the Bern railway company on an interim basis.
The chairman of the BLS board of directors, Rudolf Stämpfli, also wants to resign. He will no longer stand for re-election in the 2021 General Assembly, as he told the “Berner Zeitung”.
The resignation comes after a series of excessive subsidy payments from the BLS. The deciding factor in the departure of BLS chief Guillelmon may have been the findings of an external study commissioned by the BLS Board of Directors.
Lead consultant PWC concluded that BLS management had already been informed in spring 2017 that the half-rate revenue from the Libero network was not accounted for, and that they deliberately kept this quiet. “Management has accepted this as a minimization of business risk, as the federal government and the cantons refused to fund individual items entitled to compensation,” says the BLS press release.
As CEO, Guillelmon is the chairman of the BLS executive board. However, his deputy Dirk Stahl, who will be acting as head of the railway company from November on, is also represented. This raises the obvious question of whether Stahl was also an accessory to the deliberately concealed incorrect reservation.
Bern’s governing council also announced on Friday morning that the procedure by which public authorities ordered BLS public transport services would be externally reviewed. “The report aims to examine the BLS processes and the cooperation between the various actors in the ordering and planning process and to show how simplifications can be implemented,” the cantonal government writes.
The government of Bern wants money back
Traffic Director Christoph Neuhaus (SVP) had previously stated that that the canton wants to claim too many subsidies paid to the BLS.
On Thursday night it emerged that the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) had concluded in an audit report that incorrect BLS divisional accounts had caused “excessive compensation payments” by the federal government and the canton of Bern by regional public transport.
The new finding adds to two known cases in which the BLS had raised too much government money with incorrect accounts. With excessive imputed interest, he had received CHF 29 million more, and due to the incomplete accounting of the income of the Libero network, he had received an excess of 44 million, which he had to return to the public treasury.
The BLS invited Bernard Guillelmon, Chairman of the Board of Management Rudolf Stämpfli and Ueli Dietiker, Member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Finance and Audit Committee, to a press conference at 10 am
