States Treasurer to face action over euro blunder
Friday 27th March 2009, 2:57PM GMT.
ONE of the Island’s top civil servants is to face a disciplinary hearing over the euro rate blunders that have added £3m to the cost of the new incinerator, the JEP has learned.
States Treasurer Ian Black, the chief officer of the Treasury department, is one of the employees facing action over the mistakes.
Last week, a report by the States independent spending watchdog heavily criticised the Treasury department for failing to fix the exchange rate at which the parts of the £100m-plus contract would be paid.
Because the rate has shifted unfavourably since the contract was signed – the stage at which the States were told the rate was going to be fixed – the cost has risen by millions of pounds.
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shame they are not this tough on the health minister who is telling people to kill themselves!!!
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Will terry tell him off, like he did perchard.
SNAFU!!
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And if he had spent millions on “hedging” the rate or bought Euros in advance and sterling had strengthened against the euro we would all be calling for his resignation. That is why the States normally spend millions on consultants. In this instance we tried to save a few quid and did what at the time was probably the sensible thing. Nobody could have foreseen world events over the past 6 months or of the totally incompetent reaction of the UK Government which has led to the pound crashing and hense this problem. Don’t blame Jersey – blame Gordon Brown.
I wish Jersey people would stop their moaning because compared with the rest of the world they have it very easy.
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Agreed with Trev but we must add the then treasury minister to that list, I believe he was called Terry Le Sueur and is now running the Island?
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Disaplinary action eh?
What’s it going to be…100 lines or detention during playtime?
We don’t to expulsions in this school…it’s not our way.
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It looks like the civil servants will get the blame.
What about Terry le Sueur who gave the House a categorical assurance that the Euro cost would be hedged and Phillip Ozouf who took over from him as Treasury Minister.
Don’t they share some of the blame for this mess?
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Sanity said : “Nobody could have foreseen world events over the past 6 months or of the totally incompetent reaction of the UK Government which has led to the pound crashing and hense this problem. Don’t blame Jersey – blame Gordon Brown.”
However, Sanity, the weak pound versus the strong Euro was exactly the argument for Guy de Faye and TTS to push the incinerator as quickly as possible. There was no time to lose; already the incinerator was so much more expensive than a few years ago and if we didn’t move fast, it would only get more expensive. In other words, Sanity, they DID know! Hell, we ALL knew, because we were already feeling the pinch. If they hadn’t been in such a rush, this huge error might not have been made … and I am not talking about the Euro error, I am talking about voting for the incinerator in the first place.
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Heads should roll but they won’t. I believe that there will probably be a discussion over tiffin about this sad state of affairs. They will probably just blame the Euro as there was no way they could have forseen this event, even though commentators had been predicting parity of the Euro and pound.
There is no way fiancial wizards would take any notice of half wits. Another debacle to add to the growing list of the CoM’s achievements in my opinion.
I see no ships only hardships…..
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Let me guess – if the civil servents had fixed the exchange rate (or bought the EURO’s) at the time the contract had been signed, and the pound had strengthened, then we would still be complaining of a loss.
They should have looked into their crystal ball!!
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jezza most commentators were talking of parity, however, those in charge, in their wisdom thought they knew better. Unfortuantely they didn’t on this occasion and it will cost us dear.
This issue has further compounded a bad error of judgement in having this type of incinerator down there, in my honest opinion. I believe we will find out shortly that certain other things will need to be done, maybe like moving certain things out of the area for fear of explosion. Hopefully I am wrong but I ain’t holding my breathe!
Let us hope the fumes emitted are safe for human consumption, and the ramsar site, or else we could be looking at an ecolgical disaster. Does anyone remember Crabbe and the leachate? I also find it amazing that they are building on top of a toxic dump. What happens if this leaches out into the environment because something goes wrong, like the other week when they ruptured the membrane?
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No less than what I told you months ago – and it will get worse – thanks to the idiots who agreed to the euro esculator clause !!
Anyway, the Island will regret a grossly overpriced contract for technology that is totally unsuited for a small island community. Just look at the Belloxanne incinerator plant………rotten through and through caused by low operating temperatures and consequent excessive acid corrosion – and believe me it will happen all over again – despite glib haw-hawing and braying by the know-all “experts” employed by the T&TS for a mighty cost in excess of one million pounds sterling !!!
In total……..Gross incompetence at its worse
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This additional 3 million is chicken feed added to the basic CNIM contract figure of 93 million + 12 million + for local contractor enabling works compared with the 30 million that would be saved had the T&TS accepted carbon neutral waste disposal as offered by the giant Babcock Wilcox Volund organization. I do wonder where the difference is going !?
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When the incineration was approved by government there were conditions attached, one being to hedge against exchange rate movements. It appears that this was overlooked, to claim that there were no ‘experts’ in the treasury on forward dealing is an extremely lame excuse and smacks of buck ( no pun intended) passing! Quite simply the Treasury Minister should have authorised his cicvil servants to place a forward deal with the States banker, this could have been arranged in a matter of days. Forward dealing is commonplace in Banks, many importers and exporters use such a financial instrument to budget and set prices at a forward date. Smoke screens are all very well but put simply the states agreed the go ahead, and someone forgot to deal forward.
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