Govt must find out state of Solid Energy

National must get to grips with the state of Solid Energy and tell New Zealanders whether they have driven the former export-award winning SOE into insolvency, says Labour’s SOEs spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove.

“Bill English has today made a stunning admission – he doesn’t know if Solid Energy is a viable company any longer.

“He said: ‘It's still not clear [if the company is viable]... and that's with very serious and competent efforts by the board and management of Solid Energy, and now, increasing focus from the banks’.

“It is incredible that he doesn’t know the state of the company when it has been in serious financial trouble for years under his watch.

“He should have been running an iron rule over the books. Instead it appears he has repeated the same mistake over and over again. Yet again he was asleep at the wheel.

“As shareholding ministers he and the SOEs minister must get to the bottom of the state of the company’s finances. There are hundreds of employees who are, once more, waiting in limbo to find out if they work for a viable company,” says Clayton Cosgrove.

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