Berlin.
The financial auditors of the Federal Court of Auditors take Deutsche Bahn to court. They call the group a “restructuring case”.
Deutsche Bahn is “a case for restructuring”, and every passenger in the country can tell their tale of woe. A report by the Federal Court of Auditors now shows how bad things really are for the state-owned company.
The 33-page document entitled “Permanent crisis of Deutsche Bahn” reads like a reckoning: Kay Scheller, President of the Federal Audit Office, accuses the federal government of playing its role as sole owner of Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) too passively. In the report, which is available to our editorial team, the auditors write that it is “only limited to providing ever-increasing budget funds”. The railways are heavily indebted and there has been no trend reversal under the traffic light coalition.
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Although DB AG was released from financial debts as part of the railway reform, it was in debt with 20 billion euros in 2018 – and the trend is rising, as the Federal Audit Office writes. Overall, the net financial debt is therefore more than 30 billion euros, which limits the room for manoeuvre increasingly one. Virtually all corporate divisions are making losses.
Court of Auditors: Ministry of Transport lacks a strategy for the railways
About every day five million euros new debts, although the state supports the company. Every year, 16.6 billion euros in public funds flow into Bahn AG. In addition to money problems, Deutsche Bahn has long missed the targets for punctuality and reliability. In 2022, more than every third long-distance train was late.
The Federal Ministry of Transport (BMDV) is missing one strategy for the railway. The Court of Auditors had already pointed this out to Volker Wissing’s (FDP) predecessor, Andreas Scheuer (CSU), in 2019, but the federal government “let four more years pass without tackling the various structural problems,” the report goes on to say. The federal government must now quickly restructure the group.
The federal government is to restructure Deutsche Bahn
In order to bring Bahn AG back into shape, a “success control system” is needed. In addition, the federal government must clarify which “parts of the group will still be necessary in the future” – meaning: The Minister of Transport should get rid of companies and business activities that are no longer needed. The Federal Court of Auditors is proposing to sell DB’s major holdings, i.e. DB Arriva and the goods division DB Schenker.
Even the “extensive investment portfolio”, which includes the operation of non-European rail transport and the development of drone landing sites, is not necessary for the railway to be able to fulfill its actual mission. According to the Basic Law, this is to fulfill “the public good, in particular the transport needs”.
High bonuses for track managers despite missed targets
Right at the beginning of his term in office in 2021, the current Minister of Transport gave the impression that he finally wanted to tackle the ailing railway system. Wissing convened a steering group. According to information from our editorial team, however, it is still without a leader. The Federal Court of Auditors complains that the federal government, as the “transport policy designer, sole owner and sponsor” must demand “significantly better management of the problem areas and effective solutions” from the railways.
So far there has been a false incentive to drive to wear and tear, so that dilapidated railway bridges, stations and networks are replaced with federal funds. Court of Auditors President Scheller said: “It has a system, that’s why the need for general renovation is so great.”
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Although rail managers have missed their targets for years and delivered a miserable performance, DB Regio, among others, recently paid out bonuses of more than 400,000 euros. And that despite the fact that the regional transport division received state aid from the Corona federal rescue package in the pandemic year. The federal government tolerated this misconduct.
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