2023-10-27 10:40:19
This Friday, the office of the Walloon Parliament decided, unanimously, to exclude the clerk Frédéric Janssens.
The institution’s board met this Wednesday and announced its decision in a press release this Friday:
“The Bureau of the Parliament of Wallonia, meeting on October 25, 2023, as part of the disciplinary procedure once morest Mr. Registrar Frédéric Janssens, decided, by secret ballot and unanimously, to propose the disciplinary sanction of automatic resignation. The Statute of Agents of the Parliament provides for the possibility for the agent to refer the matter to the Board of Appeal. If necessary, the Bureau of the Parliament will make a definitive decision on the basis of the opinion of the Board of Appeal. In order to strictly respect the procedure, the members of the Bureau of the Parliament will not make any communication on this file.”
Frédéric Janssens reacted immediately, via a press release. He once more contests the facts with which he is accused and appeals to the presumption of innocence. He pursues : “I am therefore surprised that in order to propose this heavy sanction, the Bureau of Parliament has chosen not to wait for the outcome of the judicial investigations which it itself desired and which it invoked to justify the extension of my suspension”.
However, he is still waiting for written notification of the decision from the Bureau of Parliament and concludes: “Depending on the content of the decision, I will take an attitude regarding a possible appeal.“.
The matter is far from over…
A clerk too present
The affair broke out at the end of summer 2022. There were first suspicions of harassment and violence at work which weighed on Frédéric Janssens. The man has headed the administration of the Walloon institution since 2009.
Among the hundred civil servants who work for him and, despite the fear of reprisals, several agents dared to testify. They explained in particular that the clerk treated certain officials as “next to nothing“, “under shit“, “alcoholic whore“… A recording even allows the clerk to be heard threatening someone by saying: “You go to your cardiologist this evening, you are at the morgue at noon“. Around ten complaints were filed once morest the clerk at the Namur labor court.
Bulky files
The prosecution is also interested in certain expenses and travel.
These files concern two major projects. The first is an underground pedestrian junction between a car park and Parliament. A passage dug for the exclusive use of the 75 deputies… and the clerk. The other project is “the House of Parliamentarians”. A three-storey building which adjoins that of Parliament and which should facilitate the work of the parties and the various committees.
But the invoices for these two projects have tripled without the Office of the Walloon Parliament realizing the situation. Frédéric Janssens had full powers to manage tens of millions of euros of public money as he saw fit. It was also he who might award public contracts on behalf of Parliament.
In this regard, justice is very interested in several markets. In those which concerned the modernization of the IT management tool of the Parliament and the purchase of furniture for the House of Parliamentarians, companies seem to have been favored when the specifications were drawn up. The investigation into these cases is still ongoing.
He is also accused of numerous trips abroad, the purpose and usefulness of which were not always well established.
1698404322
#Walloon #Parliament #dismisses #clerk #Frédéric #Janssens #rule #appeal