A few months into the most coveted role in the US automaking industry, Mary Barra will be facing her toughest obstacle yet. The General Motors Co Chief Executive Officer has been scheduled to testify before a US Congress committee on April 1 amid a probe into the automaker's decade-slow response to recall vehicles for an ignition defect, Bloomberg said. The defect reportedly caused the deaths of at least 12 people. Aside from Barra, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Acting Administrator David Friedman will also provide his testimony to the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This was announced by Michigan Republican and committee chairman Fred Upton yesterday.
In an email, GM spokesman Greg Martin said, "Mary welcomes the opportunity to participate in the hearing as part of GM's effort to cooperate with Congress and other authorities."
Upton said about Barra and Friedman's need to testify, "Their testimony is critical to understanding what the company and NHTSA knew about the safety problems, when they knew it, and what was done about it. We want to know if this tragedy could have been prevented and what can be done to ensure the loss of life due to safety failures like this don't happen again."
According to Blooberg, GM has long been aware of the ignition defect. Since 2001, several car owners have encountered instances wherein switches had slipped out of position, which eventually would their vehicles' power. On March 18, Barra was quoted as saying that she first leaned about an analysis of the stalling cars only in December last year, weeks before she was declared as the new CEO of GM. Barra also had said that she was informed of the decision to recall the stalling cars on January 31st.
Last month, GM has announced that it will be replacing the defective switches, which was years after customers had long been complaining about their cars going dead should they get bumped or if their car keys are on heavy keychains. Barra also has apologized publicly about the defects and has vowed that no one will be spared in an internal investigation into a failure that has been linked to a minimum of 31 accidents and 12 deaths.
