The National Railways have repeatedly botched the opportunity to acquire privately the transport concession for the High Speed Line. As a result, the government opted for a public tender which ultimately led to the debacle with the Fyra. That conclusion drew the then Transport Minister Tineke Netelenbos during her hearing Thursday before the parliamentary committee of inquiry.
“Had they listened to me, then had we drove, “the former state secretary said referring to her first efforts to allow access to the HST without tender to NS. In 2001 NS eventually won in a public tender the concession by promising to pay an annual € 178 million to the State. But these extremely high compensation broke the state later on when put on the rails of the train flash Fyra.
Unrealistic bids
Netelenbos however, rejected the suggestion that NS due to unrealistic bids accepted by the state no money held at a later stage for the purchase of sound trains. The state would therefore have opted in 2003 for a cheap model of the Italian train manufacturer AnsaldoBreda. “That is a nonsense argument,” Netelenbos said. The Fyra was early 2013, after having been only forty days in use, taken because of serious defects of the track.
The former NS state secretary stressed that it had repeatedly given the opportunity in 1999 and 2000 to obtain the HSL concession at a much reduced fee of € 100 million without competition. “I was pro-NS, but they have screwed up so far twice.
Salmon
The then Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm confirmed this lecture during his trial Thursday. According to him NS hit the final plank wrong because it tried to transport more pulling himself than was offered. “It was like getting requests a quote for painting the exterior of your home, but a story involving the kitchen is remodeled and the inside is painted.”
A final attempt of Netelenbos in the spring of 2000, yet the NS in combination with KLM and Schiphol underhand the concession, however, was opposed by Salmon. “I was dead set against”, says the current CEO of ABN Amro. The government had at that time, after all, opted for a public tender. Salmon Netelenbos said to have rebuffed the weekly cabinet meeting.
Cook
Also at premier Cook Netelenbos fell on deaf ears. The minister in May 2000 sent a personal handwritten letter to the prime minister to refrain from tendering. But Cook said the so-called blue letter would never have received because it would make him legally vulnerable. In her presence, he tore the piece. Then the government in June 2000 decided to actually write out a tender.
NS chose an excessively high ‘knockout’ bid submit. The then President Commissioner of NS, Jan Timmer, said Wednesday that he offered concessions amount to € 178 million had deliberately picked plust to find sure as the winner. “That was intended to put behind a totally idiotic exercise a point,” said Timmer.
Annual payment
NS namely lived under the assumption that the final annual payment could be talked down. The government would indeed surely pay for the high bid of the state: either through a lower dividend or through a lower license fee. “The ink was not dry or NS tried to reopen the contract again,” said Netelenbos this.
After the amount to € 148 million was reduced NS, however, was certainly respected the contract obligations. Only when the operational NS subsidiary High Speed Alliance in 2011 of the bankruptcy had to be rescued, the annual payment was made much lower.
Salmon, however, does not feel responsible for the high level NS offered in 2001 for the high-speed line. “I thought Boy, that’s a lot of money,” said the former treasurer Thursday. He also again expressed that the choice of a public tender was the cause of the fiasco with the Fyra “If you secretly awards you get a less efficient solution.
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