In
my guest post of October 4th I explained how the 2002 Gull Island deal was scuttled by then Leader of the Opposition, Danny Williams, aided and abetted by
the then Chair of the Board of
Newfoundland Hydro, Dean MacDonald, and board member Mark Dobbin.
When
Mr. Williams became Premier in 2003 he proceeded to commence a series of
personnel changes at Newfoundland Hydro which has led directly to the Muskrat
Falls boondoggle.
The
first was the appointment of Gilbert Bennett in 2003 to oversee the Lower
Churchill project. Mr. Bennett formerly worked with Rogers Cable, whose work
experience is in telecommunications. He is no doubt a bright and competent
telecommunications engineer but it is hard to see how that experience readied
him for his current role.
Then
Mr. Williams appointed Ed Martin as CEO in 2005. He is an MBA whose work
experience is in the oil and gas industry, largely in finance.
The
first thing that Mr. Martin did when he assumed his new position was to fire
anyone at Hydro who did have relevant experience and replace them largely with
oil and gas people.
I
was reminded of that fact on Thursday, October 24, 2018 when the extremely competent Maureen
Greene gave her testimony to the Inquiry. She was legal counsel to the PUB when
it heard the Muskrat Falls reference. I highly recommend to the readers of
Uncle Gnarly that they watch the archived webcast of her testimony to see her
bravura performance.
During
her testimony she revealed that she was asked to apply for the position of CEO
when the then CEO, Bill Wells, retired. She wasn’t successful as we know and
the rest is history.
So
shortly after Mr. Martin was appointed he proceeded with a purge of the
executive of Newfoundland Hydro.
Former Nalcor CEO Ed Martin |
One
of these Directors made the point to me that no major oil and gas company would
hire hydro engineers to build an oil and gas project.
Related to this Post:
Missed Opportunity: Scuttling of the 2002 Gull Island Framework Agreement
Related to this Post:
Missed Opportunity: Scuttling of the 2002 Gull Island Framework Agreement
Just
imagine where we would be today if Maureen Greene has been appointed CEO.
Knowing her as I do I am quite confident she would have proceeded step by step
and incrementally to get us to the real prize - the end of the Upper Churchill
Contract in 2041.
And
she would have ensured that Holyrood was properly maintained so that Dark NL
would never have occurred.
Those
personnel decisions have led directly to where we find ourselves today with a
project which will cause great hardship to ratepayers and taxpayers and is a
real threat to our sovereignty as a self-governing province of Canada.
Ron Penney