Suspected infidelity: Public prosecutors are investigating Eswe in Wiesbaden

The Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office has been investigating since last year against the former managing director of the municipal transport service provider Eswe, Hermann Zemlin, and the current managing director, Jörg Gerhard, on suspicion of infidelity.

The Wiesbaden senior public prosecutor Andreas Winckelmann confirmed this on Friday when asked.

According to information from the senior public prosecutor, there are also allegations against the chairman of the works council and the office manager of the management.

Due to the "extensive and ongoing investigations", Winckelmann did not want to provide any further information.

It is currently not possible to predict when the investigations in the complex case will be completed.

Among other things, the allegations are about whether the chairman of the Eswe works council was placed in a higher pay group at the request of Zemlin and Gerhard, contrary to the applicable rules.

The allegations against the two Eswe managing directors started due to anonymous letters to the Wiesbaden traffic department head Andreas Kowol (Die Grünen) and mayor Gert-Uwe Mende (SPD).

According to Kowol, the written information was passed on to the public prosecutor.

During the most recent meeting of the Committee on Finance and Investments, the head of transport reported to the members that there was now a great deal of incriminating information that corroborated the indications.

On Friday, Kowol, who is also Chairman of the Eswe Supervisory Board, specified the current situation in an interview: “There are a total of six letters, some with attachments.

This is the starting position we have been in since September 1, 2021.” The group audit of the municipal holding company WVV is trying to shed light on the matter.

According to Kowol, however, the holding company's investigations have so far been "unsatisfactory".

Supervisory Board intervenes

The Eswe management withheld the files requested by the WVV for data protection reasons, arguing that they were personal data.

"We have taken various steps on the Supervisory Board in parallel with the investigations by the Group's auditing department," he said, describing the further procedure.

This includes the Wiesbaden law firm Dierlamm, which is now providing legal advice to the supervisory board.

In addition, the supervisory board got involved in the investigation itself because, as an organ of the Eswe company, it was not subject to data protection restrictions, Kowol continued.

"There are a number of people in and around Eswe Verkehr who have informed us and others, as well as Professor Dierlamm, about what they know about it. Therefore, there is now an assessment that the allegations are hardening to a certain extent, ”said the traffic department head, referring to a whistleblower system at Eswe. The documents requested by the Eswe management have now arrived. “Extensive data sets from the electronic files at Eswe Verkehr were handed over to the corporate audit department. This means that the audit can finally be carried out with the specific facts, as well as the documents and the files," Kowol outlined the latest situation and added: "Now we have to see what can be proven."he announced that the supervisory board would intervene immediately and have this data presented.

anonymous writing

“Management is responsible for what happens in the company.

So you have to take a special look at the two managing directors if there is evidence that misconduct has taken place," the head of traffic made clear. This is not the second acting managing director, Jan Görnemann, who has only been with the company for a short time.

When asked if he had known about the allegations for a long time, Kowol replied: "I didn't know anything about it.

We were surprised by the anonymous letters.” In this context, he mentioned that Eswe is “not an easy company” with a large number of projects, where “everything is not going smoothly either.”

Apparently, the supervisory board is not always satisfied with Gerhard's management at the moment. "There are a number of business processes where we say: This is not well regulated," Kowol distanced himself from Gerhard. There are "considerable deficits" in regulations for personnel decisions. As Chairman of the Supervisory Board, he will definitely push for Eswe's decision-making processes to change. Within the next two to three weeks it will become clear whether and what action there is at Eswe Verkehr. "Something urgently needs to be changed here, if it is really so poorly organized as we have noticed from the information," clarified the chairman of the supervisory board.

Gerhard himself did not want to comment on the allegations on Friday.

"On the recommendation of a lawyer, the managing director will not comment on this at the moment because of the pending investigation," said an Eswe spokesman.