Yesterday, in the Linz city senate, the settlement proposal (see box), which is intended to end the unfortunate chapter of Swap 4175, received majority approval – as expected from the SPÖ, ÖVP and the Greens. Next week, on January 26th, it will be the turn of the Linz municipal council. Then nothing stands in the way of a settlement on the Linz side.
The legal battle with Bawag lasted more than ten years and had the potential to ruin the city financially. In any case, lessons must be learned from this financial affair, which began in 2007, says VP city party leader and deputy mayor Martin Hajart.
He proposes a commission made up of experts, administration and politicians. “This shouldn’t be a city control or investigation committee with any sort of blame,” says Hajart in the OÖN interview. “My concern is to defuse future potential dangers for the city – and to develop strategies on how to act better in crisis situations.”
“The future leitmotif,” says Hajart, “must be transparency and openness. Otherwise we will soon experience the next red miracle.” In the case of Swap 4175, for example, it took the politicians responsible at the time (Mayor Franz Dobusch and City Councilor Johann Mayr, both SP) more than a year in 2010/11 before other groups or the public were informed about the fiasco. “Negotiations were going on with Bawag that nobody knew about except for a small circle in the SPÖ,” criticizes Hajart.
For Hajart, questions that would therefore arise in a commission are: “When does who have to be informed? How do you deal with the public’s need for information?”
In addition, he says, criticism must be taken seriously, whether it comes from experts or from the opposition. The ÖVP once spoke out not only against speculative transactions, but also firmly against foreign currency loans (which were harmless compared to swap 4175, note). “At that time, the ÖVP was unfortunately dismissed by the City Council of Finance,” says Hajart.
Hajart suggests that the information from the municipal finance department, which is sent to the municipal finance committee every six months in the form of a “debt management report”, should also be improved. First, the debt management report should be submitted more than twice a year, and second, it should include the city’s outsourced companies. “The city committee members need to know the big picture,” says Hajart.
The comparison
The city of Linz is to pay 12 million euros to Bawag. That would be the end of chapter Swap 4175 (the OÖN reported in detail). In the meantime, the legal dispute over the financial affair threatened to cost the city several hundred million euros. The city’s own legal costs (almost ten million euros on the Linz side) and swap payments made in 2010 and 2011 (around 23 million euros) also remain as damage to the city.
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