Taxpayer pays for Govt’s Solid Energy stuff-up

Solid Energy’s restructure is too little, too late and comes at a cost of up to $155 million to the taxpayer, says Labour’s SOEs spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove.

“Kiwi taxpayers shouldn’t pay for the Government’s bungling. It has been over a year since Bill English and Tony Ryall announced that Solid Energy was in crisis. Over 700 jobs have been lost, one mine mothballed and nothing achieved in the past 12 months.

“Despite today’s announcement Kiwis are still left in the dark on how much the failure of Solid Energy has cost them. National must come clean and tell us the full cost.

“The truth is Solid Energy was an export-award winning company under Labour. National has turned it into a basket case that has to beg for help.

“National was warned time and again that Solid Energy was in trouble, but ministers refused to listen and took no action. Their hands-off approach meant they completely ignored the warning signs.

“National demanded higher dividends from Solid Energy and told the company to ramp up its debt. This was despite warnings that the coal price was set to drop. The plan set the company up for failure.

“The Deloitte report into Crown monitoring of Solid Energy shows Bill English and his Treasury should have acted but did nothing. The board could have been sacked. The Government could have intervened. They didn’t, instead ministers were politically and commercially negligent.

“The result of this incompetence is that almost 700 people have lost their jobs. Now all New Zealanders are left carrying the can,” says Clayton Cosgrove.

ends

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