Head of Czech Republic's largest rail operator and employer replaced

Ceske Drahy, the national rail operator in the Czech Republic has replaced board chairman and CEO Dalibor Zeleny. It has been rumored for months that Zeleny would be replaced because of a slowdown in the restructuring process the Czech Republic's largest employer.

Dalibor Zeleny, photo: CTK

The supervisory board of Ceske Drahy replaced Dalibor Zeleny as chairman of the Czech Republic's largest rail operator and later dismissed him as CEO. Mr. Zeleny was replaced by Petr Kousal who was until now the representative for Ceske Drahy in Austria. The Ministry of Transport has been seeking the removal of Mr. Zeleny for some time now. Milan Simonovsky, the Minister of Transport stated in the past that the former CEO of Ceske Drahy was unable to implement a new trade policy for the firm following the transformation from a state owned enterprise to that of a joint-stock company, thus slowing down the restructuring process.

Here is what the new CEO and chairman of the board Petr Kousal says was the main problem with the rail operator in the past:

"Despite Ceske Drahy's transformation into a joint-stock company there have been no changes, no new conditions have been introduced. Secondly, there was no reaction to last year's increase in fares, such as an expansion in railway services. The number of passengers has decreased, when compared to last year's figures, as well as the number of freight transports. Furthermore, in four years the planned performance index was not reached."

Ceske Drahy is the largest employer in the Czech Republic with 80,000 employees. In 2002 the rail operator posted a 2.6 billion Czech crown, or just over 80 million euro's loss, 1.6 billion crowns lower then in 2001. Because of past restructuring, largely in the form of layoffs, the company expects to post a profit this year, estimates range from one to four billion Czech crowns. Despite this Mr. Kousal plans to take restructuring further:

"One organization exists but we have a number of financial divisions, strategic divisions, and legal divisions. We have too many employees in our offices and I would like to downsize this organization, to downsize it from the top."