The Court of Auditors severely criticizes the Council of State in the management of its external mandates. It reveals “numerous irregularities”: legal framework violated, money poorly spent, unidentified needs, disguised subsidies, risks of corruption. Everything needs to be reviewed, but the government refuses most of the recommendations, deplores the Court.
Résumé:
- The Court of Auditors analyzed the compliance of the external mandates granted by the canton in 2023. These amount to around 200 million francs.
- The Court’s investigation revealed “numerous irregularities”: outsourcing without examination of needs, disguised subsidies, tenders without competitive bidding, non-compliance with the law and existing directives, risks of corruption or conflicts of interest, invoices paid without a contract, documents scattered or lost, in particular.
- The Court issued ten recommendations, almost all of which were refused by the government, notably that relating to the prevention of conflicts of interest and corruption.
- This analytical work was commissioned by the finance committee of the Grand Council following the revelations of Léman Bleu targeting former State Councilor Fabienne Fischer, who had granted mandates to projects carried out by her companion, and questions surrounding mandates awarded by Antonio Hodgers’ department.
- Léman Bleu already revealed last September the conclusions of an internal and confidential audit, also pointing out serious problems.
Some crazy examples:
An independent to represent the State on a Board of Directors. For 6 years, a self-employed person was paid 120,000 francs per year, in addition to directors’ fees, by the taxpayer. The State was not able to justify this outsourcing, even though this function was previously occupied by a senior State official during his working hours. Subsequently, a new contract with a new agent was concluded for an amount of 64,000 francs annually, without justifying why the State did not have the required skills internally.
A call for tenders to manage a call for tenders. The State carried out a public call for tenders with a view to finding an agent capable of carrying out a future call for tenders. No analysis of needs was provided by the department concerned, nor even the justification of why the State did not have the resources to carry out its calls for tenders itself, especially since it has a purchasing center competent for this type of activity. Cost of the operation: 240,000 francs.
Between 2022 and 2023, a department awarded three similar mandates without a call for tender to two companies managed by the same person using a split process. The total amounts to 326,250 francs.
The captive state of an IT supplier since 1996 for an application, whose contract of 250,000 francs is automatically renewed each year, because the initial contract did not provide for the intellectual property of the software to remain with the State of Geneva, which is nevertheless the sole financier of this program .
A contract for the delivery of cold meals, exceeding 250,000 francs annually, awarded to a single service provider without competition.
The Court’s ten recommendations:
1. Faced with all the irregularities observed, strengthen controls. Recommendation refused without explanation by the Council of State.
2. Adopt a more transversal way of looking at purchasing, and not in silos. Recommendation refused without explanation by the Council of State.
3. Strengthen needs analysis before awarding external mandates. Recommendation accepted by the Council of State.
4. Clarify the markets to avoid salami. Recommendation refused without explanation by the Council of State.
5. Clarify the notion of effective competition. Recommendation refused without explanation by the Council of State.
6. End disguised subsidies. Recommendation accepted by the Council of State.
7. Strengthen the prevention of conflicts of interest and corruption. Recommendation refused without explanation by the Council of State.
8. & 9. Improve the purchasing nomenclature to better identify markets. Integrate this nomenclature into the financial analysis. Recommendations refused without explanation by the Council of State.
10. Digitize the end-to-end purchasing flow. Recommendation accepted by the Council of State subject to the means available.
Developments will follow. The Council of State intends to respond during a press conference at the beginning of the afternoon, the reflections of which will be presented in the 6:30 p.m. newspaper.
Swiss
