The State Attorney's Office questions Òscar Playà's dual role in Rodalies

The State Attorney's Office has issued a non-binding report that identifies a structural conflict of interest in the accumulation of responsibilities of Òscar Playà at the helm of the mixed company Rodalies de Catalunya and the operational management of the current Renfe service.

A legal report from the State Attorney's Office, requested by Renfe at the behest of the Department of Territory, concludes that the dual role of Òscar Playà creates a structural conflict of interest. The non-binding opinion states that the exclusive dedication that Playà maintains in the mixed company Rodalies de Catalunya is incompatible with taking on another executive role in a different public company, as La Vanguardia has learned.

Since February, Playà has held two positions that the incompatibility law for personnel serving public administrations prohibits from being combined. On one hand, he is the CEO of the new mixed company Rodalies de Catalunya, in which Renfe holds 50.1% and the Generalitat 49.9%, and which is presided over by the councillor Sílvia Paneque. On the other hand, he serves as the operational director of the current Rodalies service, still under Renfe's control, although without a formal contract.

The State Attorney's Office argues that assuming a second executive responsibility in another public entity linked by a public service contractual relationship clashes with the exclusive dedication regime. The report indicates that the situation could make sense when the mixed company takes over the railway service competencies in Catalunya, but until then, these are two distinct public entities.

Playà was officially appointed CEO in January and has been informally acting as the operational director since February. He maintains an office in the Department of Territory, on Avenida Josep Tarradellas, and another five minutes away on foot, in Renfe's offices at Sants station. His salary, which exceeds 130,000 euros, is paid by the mixed company; he receives no income from Renfe.

The Generalitat defended the dual role when appointing him to implement a new governance collaboratively with Renfe workers in Catalunya. The inclusion of a government official in Renfe's structure was not well received by the technical side of the state operator, but it had the approval of ERC, the Ministry of Transport, and Renfe's president, Álvaro Fernández Heredia.

Playà, who directed the Barcelona metro at Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) for the past few years, took over the position left vacant by Josep Enric García Alemany, who was dismissed after the railway crisis in January. He received a warm welcome initially in Madrid, but that trust has deteriorated over time.

"A structural conflict of interest, arising from the dual functional position of the individual within entities linked by a public service contractual relationship"

Two weeks ago, after the ceiling collapse at Fabra i Puig station, Playà referred to Renfe in the third person, which caused discomfort within the company both in Barcelona and Madrid. It was also not well received that on Wednesday, during radio interviews amid the train drivers' strike, he stated that he did not have the Ministry of Transport as an interlocutor.

Meanwhile, the mixed company has opened the process to hire its first executives. Nine months after its establishment, Playà remains the only employee of the company. The board of directors has approved five positions for the areas of Operations; Organisation and People; Legal, Administrative and Finance; Maintenance and Projects; and Communication, Clients and Marketing, with salaries ranging from 100,800 to 115,000 euros, covered by the initial share capital of two million euros.

The company's first objective is to obtain the railway company license and the safety certificate that must be validated by the State Agency for Railway Safety (Aesf). Due to the lack of technicians, the drafting of these documents has been entrusted to external consultancies, which have at least a year of work ahead of them. Not until 2028, at the earliest, is it expected that Rodalies de Catalunya will be able to take over the service.