Image: ANDY WENZEL (FEDERAL CHANCELLOR’S OFFICE)
Ana Simic has joined the supervisory board of the state-owned Asfinag. Simic is Managing Director Austria at Dain Studios, a data management and AI company, the Climate Ministry announced yesterday. When asked by the APA about Simic’s qualifications, the ministry said that she was a proven IT expert with experience at A1 and bwin, and that she was currently sitting on the supervisory board of the IT company EuroTeleSites. The FPÖ has identified a “flawless job haggler”.
FPÖ transport spokesman Christian Hafenecker sees her as a “green party soldier” and points out that Simic ran in seventh place on the Greens’ list in the Vienna-Alsergrund district council election in 2020. In addition, according to the Chamber of Commerce, the company Dain Studios has already been liquidated, and Climate Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) presented false facts in her press release from yesterday.
“In any case, it should be written in Ms Gewessler’s register that any postal fraud can be reversed and that a ministerial charge awaits her as a minister even after she leaves office soon,” said Hafenecker. When asked by the APA, the Climate Ministry said that Dain had withdrawn from Austria but would remain active internationally. And private political commitment is not examined when filling the position, as only expertise and qualifications count.
Olga Voglauer, general secretary of the Green Party, later followed up. In a statement to the APA she said: “It is an unparalleled mockery that the very party that has to accept the accusation of enriching itself wherever possible is criticizing the appointment of an indisputably highly qualified person. Anyone who looks at the appointments in the climate protection ministry across the board can only come to one conclusion: the only relevant criteria are expertise and qualifications. Two criteria that the FPÖ obviously has no idea about.”
- Read here: Herbert Kasser and Hartwig Hufnagl: New management duo for Asfinag
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