It’s a sentence that fits. “The Federal Ministry of Transport is failing when it comes to controlling Deutsche Bahn AG.” This is the conclusion reached by the Federal Audit Office in a previously unpublished report to the Budget Committee of the Bundestag South German newspaper is present. In recent months, the auditors have examined the extent to which Transport Minister Volker Wissing’s (FDP) office has fulfilled its promise to better enforce the federal government’s interests in the state-owned company. The result was that this “failed due to the company’s resistance” – and “the lack of enforcement” on the part of the Federal Ministry of Transport (BMDV).
According to the report, the management level of the ministry gave in to the interests of Deutsche Bahn in important areas. The Federal Audit Office speaks of a “strategic vacuum” on the part of the federal government, which DB is filling. For example, Wissing’s company failed to “unbundle” the new public-interest infrastructure division DB Infrago from corporate interests, and it also failed to achieve personnel independence from DB AG. Ultimately, the railway “successfully prevailed against the BMDV on questions of its restructuring”. The losers are the federal government, the taxpayers and the travelers, who continue to only have access to a railway system that is in need of reform. The auditors appeal to the budget holders to urge the ministry to “no longer subordinate themselves to the commercial interests” of the railway.
The criticism hits Federal Transport Minister Wissing at a sore point – and in a delicate phase. On the one hand, he had always claimed to have to manage “extremely much”, especially since the founding of DB Infrago. “I don’t think the railway’s infrastructure has ever been tighter,” he said in the spring. The Federal Audit Office comes to a completely different conclusion. Especially since the so-called “Infraplan”, which is supposed to be the central control instrument for the infrastructure, is still a long time coming, even ten months after the DB subsidiary was founded.
In addition, Wissing recently did everything in its power to increase the pressure on the railway board around railway boss Richard Lutz. If the minister has his way, the railway should not only gradually become more punctual in the coming years, but also be back in the black at the same time. The group management then developed a restructuring program called “S3” with many key figures and promises; Wissing wants to check progress every three months. But does that correspond to effective control, as the minister claims?
Steering? “Just try it out”
This is apparently difficult to argue even for executives from Wissing’s company. Just a few hours after the Court of Auditors’ report was received by the Budget Committee, Corinna Salander, head of the railway department in the BMDV, sat on a stage in Berlin. She was asked how exactly the ministry is currently managing DB Infrago. “We are currently managing things by communicating very, very regularly,” was Salander’s honest answer. The infraplan is currently being developed, something like this doesn’t happen overnight. But they will now “simply try out individual control instruments,” she said – and in doing so, she probably inadvertently confirmed the devastating report from the Federal Audit Office.
The opposition is correspondingly dismayed. She accuses Wissing and his company of “total failure” in managing Deutsche Bahn. “The committees set up specifically for this purpose in the ministries apparently only serve to secure positions, but not to take effective action on the company,” said the deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group Ulrich Lange. From his point of view, not only the minister has failed – but also DB Infrago.