Finance watchdog criticises management of military real estate

The Swiss Federal Audit Office (CDF) published a critical report on Monday about Armasuisse Real Estate, the body responsible for managing the Swiss army's infrastructure. According to the CDF, the agency is accumulating delays in renovation work and lacks strategic planning suited to the armed forces' new requirements for strengthening capacity.

The real estate portfolio managed by Armasuisse comprises around 21,600 properties, including 6,070 buildings, with an estimated replacement value of 28.4 billion francs. Until a few years ago, the goal was to reduce the core portfolio to 20 billion. But the worsening geopolitical situation led the Real Estate Council of the Department of Defence (DDPS) to reverse course in 2022, now aiming for a ceiling of 30 billion francs.

According to the report, expanding the portfolio could require up to 6 billion francs, but Armasuisse Real Estate is still unable to precisely quantify the troops' actual needs or accurately estimate the investment required. Planning documents from the Defence Group, including the forthcoming "Perspectives 2040" report, will not be ready before the end of the year. Petra Kobler, head of Armasuisse Real Estate, acknowledged that the backlog cannot be caught up in the short term and that priorities will need to be set.

Delays, errors and a leadership vacuum

Maintenance delays are growing at a worrying pace. By the end of 2025, renovation costs had risen above 34% of the portfolio's value, equivalent to 7.3 billion francs, against a maximum target of 25%. The backlog in maintenance needs ranges between 2 and 3 billion francs. Without a doubling of investment, internal projections suggest this backlog could reach 40% by 2030.

The CDF also found problems with the management control tools, which rely on Excel files full of contradictions and methodological errors: a wrong formula caused nearly 250 million francs in maintenance spending to disappear from recent balance sheets.

On the strategic level, the report points to an absence of leadership decisions. The DDPS Real Estate Council cancelled its last two ordinary meetings, blocking important decisions. This vacuum is fuelling tensions between the Defence Group and Armasuisse, particularly over the military's repeated requests to ease certain environmental or legal constraints in order to free up resources for armaments.

Armasuisse and the DDPS have already launched measures to improve project management, aiming to better coordinate real estate and armament projects. "We need to clearly understand the interdependencies, for example the fact that a new weapons system requires a dedicated shelter hangar," said Robert Scheidegger, deputy secretary general of the DDPS. According to Kobler, the real estate portfolio must be systematically oriented towards defence capability, even at the expense of architectural and urban planning considerations.

The CDF issued four recommendations, including timely decisions in principle on governance, an immediate clean-up of accounting data, and a requirement to adopt modular construction standards. The DDPS, Armasuisse and the army command accepted the report's conclusions, stating that they have already resolved part of the coordination issues and begun updating procedures.