Dunedin City Council – Media Release
New directors appointed for Aurora and Delta boards
This item was published on 03 Jul 2017
Dunedin City Holdings Limited (DCHL) has appointed three new directors within its group as part of changes to the Aurora Energy and Delta Utility Services companies which take effect from today, Monday, 3 July. DCHL Board chair Graham Crombie says that Margaret Devlin and Brenden Hall have been appointed to the Aurora Board, while Steven Grave has been appointed to the Delta Board.
“There was strong interest in these vacancies, with a total of 80 applications received from throughout New Zealand and overseas. I’m delighted that we’ve been able to appoint three talented and experienced people to these roles.”
Mr Crombie says the board appointments have been made as a result of DCHL implementing one of the key recommendations from a Deloitte review of the companies’ network maintenance processes late last year. Deloitte recommended that Aurora and Delta should have different board members with no commonality of directors. As previously announced, current board members Steve Thompson and Dave Frow remain on the Aurora board only, with Mr Thompson as chair. Brian Wood and Trevor Kempton will remain on the Delta board only, with Mr Wood as transition chair. “The changes will see the companies fully separate with Aurora being the asset owning and management company, while Delta will revert to a contracting company. The skills required in each company from a governance perspective are different,” he says. “However, it is important that some continuity is maintained within the governance structures. The decision was therefore made early on to have two of the current directors move to each new board.” DCHL expects to make an appointment to fill the one remaining director vacancy on the Delta Board, within the coming weeks.
Director fees totalling $220,500 for Aurora and $204,000 for Delta, as recommended by an independent review by the Institute of Directors were approved by DCHL and endorsed by the Council. These fees compare to the current total fees for the combined companies of $258,250.
Contact DCHL Chair on 034774000 | Mobile: 0274363882
DCC Link
█ Media release – New directors appointed for Aurora and Delta boards
(PDF, 54.1 KB)
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The A/D directors forever joined at the hip think they can tough it out by collecting fees.
Both the non-retiring and the newbies appear grey around the gills, deadhead controlling and incapable of clean governance.
Larks, it appears Mr Crombie is staying on at DCHL. Not enough lawn mowing at Clyde to wobble his wattles.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
What if? Dunedin... 
This must be one of the softest and sweetest directorships to hold anywhere in the world.
Little wonder there was an 80 strong queue of international applicants.
History shows us that no matter how appallingly bad the governance of these two companies has been, the directors have always been well paid and can shuffle off quietly once the scale of their collective incompetence has been recognised.
There are no angry or probing shareholders to face at AGMs. There appears to be no scrutiny applied from any quarter, as evidenced by what it finally took to get some action taken on the ramshackle state of the network – one loud blast of the whistle from Richard Healey. And look at the results of that brave call. Before that, nothing, absolutely nothing but a fully sanctioned ‘run-to-fail’ policy of network operations by directors and managers for over 20 years.
DCHL. This was your big chance to get value for money for Dunedin’s ratepayers – remember them? – the people who these companies are supposed to be serving.
Instead, we see Delta continue on as Aurora’s ‘preferred’ contractor. After the dilapidated state of the network with some of the worst reliability stats in NZ, and the numerous local body maintenance contracts that Delta has managed to lose, just how poorly must a contractor prove to be, before that ‘preferred’ status is dumped?
Aurora continues on with its lucrative and guaranteed income stream. It has no network debtors as this function is the sole responsibility of the electricity retailers who must chase customers for any outstanding accounts. What a dream operation! The hardest part is convincing the ComCom every 5 years of the need to hike its charges.
Delta has the network maintenance and build ‘contracts’ handed to it on a plate as preferred contractor!! No need to prepare tenders ever, no need to prove they are even slightly competitive.
The work is just there as of right.
It’s a recipe for the largesse to continue. It is a disgracefully bad business model. Just why Mr Crombie is so ‘delighted’ with this outcome is something that ratepayers must demand answers to.
Winter temperatures are grim enough, then came Aurora pole upgrades to coldest Central Otago. The directors fees for Aurora and Delta are large enough to hire a generator each….
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Tue, 4 Jul 2017
ODT: Power cuts ‘unfortunate’ but necessary – mayor
By Pam Jones
Power outages in Central Otago being caused by Aurora Energy’s power pole replacement programme are “unfortunate”, but there is never an ideal time for a disruption and the work needs to be done, Central Otago Mayor Tim Cadogan says. Clyde businesses were up in arms about a seven-hour outage that cut power to 630 customers on Saturday, and residents in other areas in Central Otago – as well as elsewhere in Otago – will have power cuts in coming weeks while poles are being replaced. More than 180 households will be without power in Wanaka today, there will be various outages in Alexandra from July 5-19, 485 customers will be affected by an outage in Earnscleugh on July 19, and there will be various power outages in Cromwell from July 17-21. Cont/
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Let’s shove Grady and his fat corporate friends out into the ice and snow with no hats, jackets or shoes.
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