A potential conflict of interest exists at the top of the HUG: the vice-president of their board of directors, Caroline Kant, is the wife of the administrative and financial director of the Cantonal Health Office. In the wake of this news published by the “Tribune de Genève” and “Le Temps”, the president of the Council of State, Nathalie Fontanet, provided a clarification: the government college was “not informed” of this marital bond “when he named” Caroline Kant. “It is up to the department (editor’s note, supervising the hospital) to examine whether there is a conflict of interest.” Here, the dicastery concerned is that of health and mobility (DSM), which is chaired by State Councilor Pierre Maudet.
Nathalie Fontanet detailed the general process for appointing a candidate to a public entity. This is proposed by the responsible department. “The Council of State is aware of his experience, his background, but not of his links of interest.” The latter are only transmitted “after nomination to the Chancellery so that it is able to make this document public, upon request”. This form was duly completed and communicated by Caroline Kant.
The Council of State therefore only discovered his links with a senior OCS official after the fact. “We were concerned by the question, then reassured by the assurance given to us by the magistrate (editor’s note, Pierre Maudet) that a solution was sought.” As for the question of whether the DSM had all the information when it submitted the name of Caroline Kant to the Executive, Nathalie Fontanet responds: “I cannot comment.”
Questioned on this subject, the DSM explained that Caroline Kant had “from the outset declared her links of interest, which were included in her file in complete transparency. This was analyzed by the department.”
Subsequently, neither Pierre Maudet nor the management of the Cantonal Health Office “considered that the situation posed a problem, given that Mrs Kant was not going to maintain any direct professional – hierarchical or functional – link with her husband. » His appointment was therefore proposed to the Council of State without mentioning the said situation, deemed non-problematic.
“However”, specifies the DSM, “in order to ensure compliant governance”, Pierre Maudet wanted the HUG internal audit service to analyze the links of interest of all the members of the board of directors. hospital administration. “Submitted in June, this report highlights a “medium” risk of potential conflict of interest in the perspective of Ms. Kant’s accession to the presidency of HUG. Since then, the Department has been working to resolve this situation.”
