“Where money flows, there is a risk of abuse”

With the Postbus-Bschiss he exposed the biggest subsidy scandal in Swiss history: Pascal Stirnimann (49). As Chief of Auditing at the Federal Office of Transport (FOT), he found that Postbus had been paying far too high fees and making illicit profits for years. The yellow giant repaid more than 200 million Swiss francs. In April, the Federal Council elected Stirnimann as head of the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO), where he succeeded Michel Huissoud on 1 September.

Blick: Mr. Stirnimann, your predecessor, Mr. Huissoud, was not popular with everyone, which speaks for him, right?
Pascal Stirniman: If you want to be an examiner, you are wrong if you want to be popular. I think it’s important that people say about me that he was strict but fair in this matter.

But you don’t give the impression of a tough dog.
You should ask the examinees that. But the past probably showed that I could trade with bite. A former boss said he had never known anyone as persistent as me and at the same time as charming.

Was that BAV director Peter Füglistaler?
Yes, exactly.

You spoke indirectly about the mailbox scandal you came across in the BAV. Were you more persistent than others?
The reason was that a new holding structure was created at Postauto with the reorganization of Impresa. With new such structures one should always understand why they are being introduced. I didn’t understand that then.

So you’re confused?
Absolute. I suspected that the motive for this reorganization was profit skimming. Unfortunately, God confirmed that.

At the Postbus-Bschiss it was not only a problem of unintentionally wrong bookings, but criminal energy was probably used here.
It is for the judge to judge.

Not every federal agency is as persistent as you. In those for sports, incorrect payments of J+S funds have occurred time and time again.
I don’t know the cases. But where money flows, there is a risk of misuse. Ultimately, it must be ensured that there is effective control. With subsidies there are always benefits that are linked to conditions that are not formulated precisely enough. That is why it needs strong laws, strong controls and people who want to make sure that the subsidies end up in the right place.

When you read in the newspaper that mistakes have been made repeatedly in a federal office, do you follow those tips?
Absolute! Part of our job is analyzing media reports. And we rely on whistleblowers. We have over 400 leads that we research every year. Also internationally, more than 50 percent of fraud cases come to light through whistleblowing. Federal personnel are protected when reporting violations.

The SFAO now oversees party funding. You only have 15 days to do this. as the?
This shows that the devil is in the details. After the elections on October 22, 2023, the parties have until December 21 to send us their campaign finance information. From then on we have 15 days over the holidays for our exam. I don’t think anyone would be happy if we went past a party headquarters on December 26. However, we were able to postpone our deadline.

At the very end: With all the negatives – for you the Mailbox scandal was positive. You became SFAO boss.
It’s always like that. The one who scores the goal is not necessarily the best player. However, the market value is rising. But we had a good team in the BAV and were able to reap the laurels together. However, we would have preferred if the problem had not occurred at all.