2023-10-24 14:33:00
Tuesday morning in the Environment Committee, Minister Céline Tellier (Ecolo) asked the boss of the SWDE (Walloon Water Company), Éric Van Sevenant, who attended the session, to answer a question from the MP for opposition François Desquesnes (Les Engagés). The former chief of staff of Jean-Claude Marcourt (PS) complied with good grace and even came to sit next to the minister to respond. After he spoke, the president of the commission Jean-Pierre Lepine (PS) made it clear that Mr. Van Sevenant was not speaking as boss of the SWDE but as “adviser to the minister”. This is where the problem lies. Indeed, a function of public administrator is incompatible with a function in a cabinet on which the structure depends. However, Éric Van Sevenant is president of the SWDE management committee, of which Céline Tellier is in charge.
Céline Tellier reacts to Alexander De Croo’s controversial comments on the Environment: “I was stunned, we’re not in a Netflix series”
The minister’s office specifies that Mr van Sevenant “is in no way attached to the Minister’s Office in any capacity” and that the terms “advisers or experts are the terms used in Parliament”. Apart from the fact that the use of these terms also used within cabinets can lead to confusion, we can still wonder if it is quite normal for the boss of the SWDE to respond to Parliament with an ill-defined “other hat” of elsewhere, on a text which concerns in particular modifications to his current function at the SWDE and which he will be responsible for applying when it has been voted on in plenary session. And other questions arise? How did Mr Van Sevenant intervene in the drafting of this decree? There may be no problem, but it would be good once and for all in Wallonia if we were more cautious than others in matters of governance. The recent past should dictate this.
1698163726
#Céline #Tellier #boss #Walloon #Water #Company #respond #place #text #concerns
