New unease in the State of Geneva: the socialist state councilor Carole-Anne Kast would have hired one of her relatives for an executive position, without a competitive examination. Questioned in Forum, the elected official said she wanted to show flexibility to “prioritize the efficiency of the State”.
According to information from Geneva television Lake Geneva Bluethe head of the Department of Institutions and Digital Affairs (DIN) Carole-Anne Kast has appointed a former socialist municipal councilor as head of the Municipal Affairs Service (Safco).
For a year, Safco, a service made up of six to seven people and which forms the link between the municipalities and the canton, has been without its director, who is seriously ill, and two other employees, also on sick leave.
As the municipal elections approach, the DIN has therefore decided to strengthen this weakened service with the creation of a sector head position, responsible for “managing and supporting” the team. The new recruit has a temporary auxiliary contract, i.e. a temporary contract valid for one year and renewable.
It is this specificity which makes DIN spokesperson Laurent Paoliello say that the legal framework has been respected, to the extent that this type of contract does not require a competitive tender for the position.
A profile that questions
The committed man, aged 62, was a municipal councilor of a large Geneva municipality for nine years and still has experience on the board of directors of a public authority, as a representative of his party. . He has a background as a computer scientist, with experience as an IT executive in the banking sector, which he left in 2018. However, he has never worked for the State and does not have a law degree. .
Some politicians consider this course to be inappropriate with Safco, which deals mainly with legal matters. However, according to the specialists interviewed by Léman Bleu, working in this service requires mastery of administrative matters and solid legal skills, or even a lawyer’s license, as was the case for these predecessors.
Critics left and right
The reactions of the Geneva political class are contrasting, but mostly negative to this commitment to knowledge without competition.
Several socialist elected officials contacted by RTS say they are “embarrassed”. Some call for caution and to establish the facts before making a decision. Others do not hesitate to speak of “shame” and “political misconduct”.
On the right of the Geneva political spectrum, we do not hesitate to brandish the word “cronyism”, although some elected officials are more measured, like Natacha Buffet-Desfayes. The head of the PLR group regrets the image damage and Carole-Anne Kast’s desire to “play with the rules”.
“My concern was the well-being of the team”
Asked in Forum about these accusations of cronyism, Carole-Anne Kast immediately responded that her main concern was “the well-being of the team” and being able to strengthen it at a time when two other of its members were also absent.
“What we are asking of the State is to be able to respond flexibly to situations. In this specific case, we identified a person who could provide this reinforcement, this flexibility, who was available quickly and who had experience to be able to be quickly functional”, explains the State Councilor.
“When you are dealing with absences due to sick leave, you never know how long it will last. Faced with these situations, it is very difficult to advertise a position, especially for a supervisory position. This engagement was made possible because another position was open and the person in question applied. He was not selected, but his profile and skills, his background, were considered interesting to strengthen the team. Safco,” she defends herself.
“I think I showed courage”
“We really need to make the difference between a fixed, long-term civil servant position, with the title, with employment guarantees, and an auxiliary position, which is a position to help out. “does not have the same salary class as the absent person, he is not an interim director, he is a local manager”, she insists, while specifying that if the position had been vacant, he would have was put into competition.
Did Carole-Anne Kast not underestimate the potential political dimension in this affair? “I think I showed courage. I favored the efficiency of the State, the agility required of it, the strengthening of teams, over a potential image risk and political attacks,” declares she on the RTS antenna,
Faced with criticism from her own camp, the socialist state councilor invites those concerned to come and talk to her about it. “Everyone who came to see me about this, to whom I was able to explain the situation, told me: ‘Ah yes, it changes the situation’.”
>> Carole-Anne Kast’s interview in Forum:
Radio subject: Mohamed Musadak
Web article: Jérémie Favre
