According to N-VA Member of Parliament Michael Freilich, Jean-Paul Van Avermaet, the CEO of bpost, told analysts several times on November 4 that there was no new peak in the number of parcels coming. However, the new lockdown had already taken effect by then. Freilich finds it incomprehensible that Van Avermaet does not seem to have learned any lessons from the first lockdown, and that the major boss of the post did not even see a peak coming during this end-of-year period. N-VA requests a hearing in parliament.
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Freilich, like a number of other MPs, questioned Minister of Public Enterprises Petra De Sutter (Groen) about the malaise at bpost. The company is currently processing more than 600,000 parcels per day due to the lockdown and on top of that the peak in e-commerce due to Black Friday and the approaching end-of-year period.
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The fact that bpost said last week that it was surprised by that sudden peak – the company spoke of a “very exceptional increase” – was not answered by Freilich, who spoke in the Chamber about “mismanagement”. “In other countries where there is also a lockdown, parcel delivery is running smoothly”, says Freilich.
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According to Freilich, bpost CEO Jean-Paul Van Avermaet had a number of stock market analysts at a conference call at the beginning of this month we were assured that there was no new peak in the number of parcels to arrive, after the spring peak that did occur during the first lockdown. However, analysts explicitly asked him about the consequences of the new lockdown.
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Van Avermaet is said to have repeated his statement that there was no new upsurge to come up to three times. “I don’t expect a jump like in March, April, May. We won’t have a big peak again, I don’t expect that ”, Freilich quoted Van Avermaet. “How is such a thing possible? Three weeks ago the CEO of bpost said: ‘We do not expect an extra peak’. I don’t accept that. ”
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N-VA requests a hearing in the House because it is clear to the party that bpost has not anticipated the expected crowds, something that the majority will not respond to for the time being.
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Van Avermaet also defended himself yesterday in ‘Terzake’, where he said that “no one had expected a second wave”.
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