ASTALDI UNBOWED: TAKES OPPOSITE VIEW TO ED MARTIN'S CLAIM COMPANY IS FAILING

Nalcor CEO Ed Martin is not forthright with the public about the status of the Astaldi contract at Muskrat Falls. 

Astaldi’s version may not be entirely accurate either; but it is very different than the one Ed Martin relates, and we need to know why..

In October, 2013, after six months of evaluation, Nalcor awarded a contract to Astaldi to build the powerhouse, intake, gated spillway, transition structures and other associated work. Astaldi booked the contract with a value of C$1.0 billion.

Last week Martin told reporters: "We do have an issue with the powerhouse that Astaldi is constructing. They have fallen behind significantly”. That lag will have "schedule implications….and with schedule implications, there will be some cost implications", the CBC reported.

This is not the first time Ed Martin has spoken poorly of Astaldi’s performance; the Muskrat Falls Oversight Committee has referred to the problem frequently, too. This excerpt from the March 2015 Report is just one, and not necessarily the latest, example:

NALCOR CEO DETERMINED TO BREAK TREASURY; BALL WILL LET HIM

It’s a lot to expect from a Premier still trying to make his first decision. 

But Nalcor CEO Ed Martin, having failed to do the honourable thing at last Thursday’s Nalcor AGM, will have to be pushed. Still, it is increasingly clear it won’t be Ball who will do the pushing.

One of the few items of substance that came out of the AGM was confirmation that Muskrat will be delayed and the cost will climb even higher, though I am unsure who is left to claim surprise.

Martin also said we won’t get a cost and schedule update until the end of June, leaving us to wonder if he will tell the Premier the E&Y March 31 deadline will also have to be extended.

One attendee at the AGM commented: "the new government has not taken a feather out of Ed Martin’s smooth-as-silk insouciance. He has risen above petty concerns about budgets and schedules to extol the longevity of hydroelectric projects, such as the Hoover Dam, while sacrificing the government’s commitment to open the books on the altar of “commercial sensitivity”.

TODAY NALCOR CEO ED MARTIN SHOULD STEP DOWN

Thursday, March 24, 2016 is the day on which Nalcor hosts its Annual General Meeting. This is a good day for Ed Martin to step down, as Nalcor CEO.

Premier Dwight Ball is testing the forbearance of the Newfoundland and Labrador public not having given the failed CEO a well-deserved push at the start of his tenure. After all, as Head of Nalcor, Ed Martin has overseen the evaporation of a great deal of public money, now counted as billions; the exact amount is a moving target. The Muskrat Falls project is only around 40% complete.

It is true that Ball indicated the intent of the EY Review “is not to make changes in the administration at Nalcor” and, in a ham-fisted way, stated that “there is no reason not to have confidence” in Nalcor management. Ed Martin might have thought otherwise, but by any measure, this is hardly a ringing endorsement of the CEO’s leadership.

ED MARTIN - THE JIG IS UP

Guest Post Written by "JM"

The release of the Government’s most recent oversight report exposes the extent to which the Muskrat Falls project is in trouble.   

With every slipping milestone, and changing cost estimate, the credibility of Nalcor’s leadership is being questioned, too.   

Both Pam Frampton at the Telegram  and the CBC’s Azzo Rezori  penned excellent columns this past weekend,  as did Russell Wangersky on Monday, which documented clear frustration with Nalcor’s ability to obfuscate the real truth on the project’s status. 

The delay to the project cannot be hidden.  One has to look no further than to the pictures of the site, 3 years into construction, to truly understand the extent of work that awaits completion. 

NALCOR MIMICS KAOS, ED MARTIN THE NEW MAXWELL SMART

Evidence that the hammer should be brought down on Nalcor continues to pile up. 

Ed Martin’s screening tool for contractors exhibits all the sophistication of Maxwell Smart; the bumbling Agent 86 in “Get Smart”. The 1960s comedy series is more likely to offer insight into Nalcor's behaviour and Ed Martin's utterances than any other interpretation of a rational and competent outfit managing the province's energy file.

As if the allegations in which SNC Lavalin is embroiled were not serious enough, the Nalcor CEO gives us Joe Borsellino, the master of memory tricks, who testified at the Charbonneau Commission Hearings into corruption into Quebec’s construction industry.

Borsellino’s faulty recall earned him disbelief from the presiding Madam Justice Charbonneau though, according to a CBC story, he still “acknowledged contact with organized crime.”

LIBERTY REPORT SHATTERS NALCOR'S CREDIBILITY

When the Public Utilities Board released the Interim Report of Liberty Consulting Group into the causes of DarkNL last week, it was Nalcor’s CEO Ed Martin, the man earning in excess of six hundred thousand dollars annually, who jumped in front of the cameras.

That’s big pay for damage control.

Nowhere to be seen was the senior man at Nalcor subsidiary, NL Hydro, V-P Rob Henderson.  Henderson was the first to emerge in the early days of the ‘black-outs’ to confess Hydro’s deficient maintenance practices; the Utility, he stated candidly, had failed to complete its summer maintenance program. It was January and the lights were out; people were cold in their homes or huddled in warming centers.   

Henderson disappeared from the public stage quickly; the honesty seemingly bad for Nalcor’s image and Ed Martin’s, too. Martin became the official spokesperson, not only for Muskrat Falls, but also for DarkNL.

Now, the Liberty Group has essentially confirmed Mr. Henderson’s version of events even if they were still understated.

NALCOR: THE SPIN DOCTOR DOES NOT INSPIRE CONFIDENCE

Photo Credit: The Economist

The phrase, popularized by Mark Twain, “lies, damn lies and statistics” is perfectly suited to those whose arguments are weak and are wont to engage in the art of the ‘spin doctor’.

Excuses for the current power debacle are in full flight.

Nalcor CEO Ed Martin attempted to explain away Holyrood’s current problems stating, on the public media, that the recent spurt of unseasonal weather spiked the Demand by 35% over the average for the last 5 years. The impression left was that the recent temperatures caused a situation that was totally unforeseen, blind siding Nalcor.



The public is expected to think that such an occurrence should be reason enough to forgive Nalcor having dropped the ball on its basic maintenance program; on ensuring the electricity infrastructure was capable of meeting Demand, that the 'experts' at Nalcor as Premier Dunderdale calls them, had us covered.