It has been almost eight months since Premier Dwight Ball asked the province’s Auditor General to investigate the $1.4 million paid in severance to former Nalcor CEO Ed Martin. NDP Leader Earle McCurdy wants to know the status of that report, and when it will be released to the public.
The subject of what the premier and cabinet ministers knew about Martin’s severance, and when they knew it, dominated Question Period in the House of Assembly for several weeks last spring. After a month and a half of repeated questioning from opposition parties and contradictory and evasive answers from government, and just four days after NDP MHAs Lorraine Michael (St. John’s East-Quidi Vidi) and Gerry Rogers (St. John’s Centre) demanded he do so, on May 29 the Premier asked the Auditor General to look into the matter.
“We heard through media in November that the Auditor General had almost completed his investigation into the Ed Martin severance scandal,” McCurdy said today, “and that some kind of an audit of Nalcor would follow.
“It’s nearly the end of January – long past time for the government to let people know what is happening with the investigation into whether the premier and the natural resources minister knew the Nalcor CEO would receive more money in severance than they expected to save by closing half the province’s libraries.”
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To contact Earle McCurdy, phone 739-6387 or e-mail news@nl.ndp.ca