7 March 2013

Don Elder needs to front up

After receiving over $10 million of taxpayers’ money to head Solid Energy, Don Elder has a moral responsibility to explain to Parliament and the New Zealand public how things went so wrong on his watch, Green Party energy spokesperson Gareth Hughes said today.

Data compiled by the Green Party shows that in the 12 years that Mr Elder was CEO of Solid Energy he was paid over $10 million. Mr Elder resigned as CEO last month, just weeks before the crisis at Solid Energy became public knowledge, yet Solid Energy has refused a request for Mr Elder to appear before the Commerce Select Committee.

“It’s not good enough for Don Elder to take the money and run,” said Mr Hughes.

“Taxpayers paid Mr Elder $10 million to head Solid Energy; they deserve to know how he let things get so bad that the company is now in crisis.

“Mr Elder received $1.3 million in the last financial year alone. Kiwi taxpayers have the right to expect that people who take large sums of public money to do a job will front up and explain when things go wrong.

“Mr Elder led Solid Energy for 12 years and departed suddenly, only weeks before the dire state of the SOE’s books came to light. Coupled with his refusal to appear before the Commerce Select Committee today, it appears that Mr Elder is failing to live up to his responsibilities.

“It raises serious questions over why we are paying executives, like Mr Elder, so much public money if they are allowed to run and hide when crunch time comes,” said Mr Hughes.

Additional information:
This table, compiled from Annual Report, shows the minimum remuneration for the top paid employee (ie the CEO) at Solid Energy for each of the years that Don Elder was CEO

Year ending June Minimum salary
2001 $ 320,000
2002 $ 380,000
2003 $ 520,000
2004 $ 570,000
2005 $ 670,000
2006 $ 650,000
2007 $ 740,000
2008 $ 1,240,000
2009 $ 1,190,000
2010 $ 1,270,000
2011 $ 1,410,000
2012 $ 1,340,000
Total $ 10,300,000
Source: Remuneration tables from Solid Energy Annual Reports (http://www.coalnz.com/index.cfm/1,186,393,0/Annual-Report.html)

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