New
Zealand First Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters wants to know if
the departing general manager of KiwiRail's Cook Strait
ferries, Tom Davis, is receiving a golden handshake or being
deservedly sacked for the way the ferry system has been
derailed.
Mr Peters says a number of senior staff are
leaving, including Mr Davis, who was reported to be paid a
salary of half a million dollars a year.
He notes that the
former KiwiRail chief executive was paid $800,000 a
year.
Mr Peters says it is astonishing that the board
allowed a flawed management to continue losing hundreds of
millions of taxpayers’ money on the Cook Strait ferries
while closing workshops and railway lines.
If Mr Davis
receives a big payout it will be a slap in the face for the
long suffering travellers and companies who tried to get
freight on the ferries, he says.
“Who will be
accountable for the mess when the highly paid people who
made it disappear over the horizon,” asks Mr Peters.
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