Overall, the CRC Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur highlights “multiple and significant shortcomings in the management” of the departmental transport authority (GDR 13), which calls for “strong and swift corrective measures”.
From the beginning of its report, the CRC is surprised that the management of RDT 13 has been provided since 2017 by the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis and not by the department, and this “contradicts the law”. The metropolis, in fact, thus finds itself managing lines outside its perimeter, for example in the Pays d’Arles.
The regional chamber of accounts is particularly strict on the management of public procurement by management, with “systemic irregularities” and “a very complete + panel +” of possible shortcomings in the matter.
Stressing that management buys for “more than € 50 million a year”, the CRC regrets “contracts signed without any competition”, sometimes with specifications drawn up by the very same service providers who would have won these future markets.
Denouncing a 2016-2023 target contract “clearly biased to the benefit of management”, and this “without any revenue target”, the CRC also notes that RDT 13 generates “a largely excess result” every year, in particular “thanks to prices high paid by the metropolis “.
“Lack of strategy and control”
It is thanks to this “over-financing of the metropolis” that the management proposes “a very advantageous management of human resources”, underlines the report, highlighting the “numerous bonuses and allowances” as well as the function vehicles attributed to the general manager and to various members of the group executive, “whose costs are higher than those granted to the highest officials of the state”.
Finally, deploring a “lack of strategy and control” of management, the CRC underlines “the number of absences of metropolitan administrators” and the lack of “effective management” of the GDR 13 by the metropolis.
Referring to “chaotic project management”, the CRC stresses for example “significant sums spent on studies (or) building permit practices”, and this “to no avail”.
At the start “A global approach to the renegotiation” of public service obligation contracts with the various operators, replied the president of LR of the metropolis, Martine Vassal, as well as “technical works to restructure the transport offer” by 2025.
