Kick Don Elder off the payroll | The Jackal

8 Mar 2013

Kick Don Elder off the payroll

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Labour's state owned enterprise spokesman Clayton Cosgrove believed Dr Elder was paid out $1.5m in addition to his annual salary of $1.3m.

Mr Ford confirmed Dr Elder was "working from home" in a consultancy capacity and was receiving full pay. He is due to finish with the company on April 1.

Receiving full pay as a consultant working from home? FFS! In these hard economic times where public services are being cut left right and centre, that's entirely unacceptable.

It appears that Elder is being paid to do sweet fuck all when he should be made to front up and answer for his part in the failure of Solid Energy.

When asked how much the entitlements were, he [current Solid Energy chairman Mark Ford] said: "If Dr Elder was happy for us to report his salary, I am more than happy to disclose what it is".

Mr Ford said a confidentiality agreement in Dr Elder's employment contract had prevented a disclosure of his entitlements.

Now hang on a minute... Elder is receiving an extensive amount of public money... The public therefore have a legal right to know exactly how much he's being paid and his contract cannot impede the law as it is written.

Clearly divulging such information wouldn't damage the economy, prejudice the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the Government, meaning it's allowable under the law set out in the Official Information Act 1982 (PDF).

It was unclear if Opposition calls for a subpoena, forcing Dr Elder to appear, would have the support of government MPs, which it needs for it to be carried forward.

Obviously they won't want anymore light being shone on the issue, mainly because it was their incompetence just as much as the companies management that caused the publicly owned enterprise to go down the drain.

Nationals incompetence is so egregious that it looks like they might have failed on purpose in order to devalue the asset just before privatisation.

History has shown that such a tactic has been used to get public assets transferred into their greedy money grubbing hands and perhaps Elder is complicit in such a crime? That would explain why he's still on the payroll.