2024-01-14 05:12:40
As a consequence of the Signa scandal, Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) wants a “massive increase” in penalties if balance sheets are not prepared correctly. In addition, corporate law must also be sharpened to the extent that “a lot more has to be disclosed from the outset,” demands Kogler in the APA interview. The work of former Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ) for Signa “smells of serious incompatibility,” says the Green Party leader.
“If you refuse to provide financial statements, the penalties are multiplied,” explained Kogler. The current level is far too low: “That’s not even petty cash,” emphasized the Green Party leader. “It’s just not relevant.” Although in many areas there are often “almost reflexive” calls for increased penalties, Kogler is convinced that it is already having an effect: “That it is so little and that those who have to pay it, as it looks now, do so “It’s also replaced by the company, Signa, which in turn deducts it from the tax – so that’s really perverse and you have to go all out on it.”
Kogler also wants regulations so that in the future there will be “no legal hiding places due to certain social structures”. It should no longer be possible to “construct such a billion-dollar structure to hide.” This needs to be “really renovated and cleaned up,” says Kogler, and “we will do that too.” Thanks to its nested nature and despite its immense size with over 1,000 companies, Signa has always managed not to have to present a consolidated balance sheet. In order for this to be successful, consultants were charged a lot.
The SPÖ is also busy with the Signa these days, specifically with the commitment of its former party leader Alfred Gusenbauer. Would Kogler exclude Gusenbauer from the party if he were a Green? “You can always make it easy by shouting, I don’t want that.” However, he would recommend checking “whether there are any legal offenses.” If, as things stand, Gusenbauer is still the head of the supervisory board of “various parts of this conglomerate” and at the same time has collected millions or is making demands worth millions, “then it smells like this is not compatible at all,” says Kogler. “As chairman of the supervisory board, he is responsible for control and not for pocketing millions in fees – that’s quite irritating.”
And in general, the Social Democrats should ask Gusenbauer: “What exactly is his achievement?”, i.e. how it might be that so many millions are accrued in such a short time. “There is more of a suspicion that Mr. Benko was running around and wanted to buy all sorts of people. But that’s a problem,” criticized Kogler. “And from such an analysis it would of course be clear that Mr. Gusenbauer would no longer be a Green member.” The SPÖ should take care of clarifying this, said Kogler. “It’s interesting that the SPÖ has a problem, from the allotment farmers to the big billionaires – that’s a nice range of inconsistencies and incompatibilities.”
With the ÖVP, on the other hand, the question will arise: “Who helped whom to achieve what?” The Greens want to devote themselves to tax matters. In this context, Kogler also mentioned the tax case of the entrepreneur Siegfried Wolf. “We need to reopen everything and see what happened,” he demanded. “Because that’s devastating – firstly in terms of the impression that it can’t be wiped away, but especially in terms of the matter itself, that millionaires and billionaires can get their hands on any decisions in the republic, in unity with representatives anyway almost all parties.”
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