21 September 2006

The Rhodium Scandal

| johnboy
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Contributing to the general air of incompetence and neglect surrounding the administration of the ACT, yesterday the Auditor-General delivered her findings into the operation of Rhodium Asset Solutions (slick website!), one of the dinky companies the Government has set up to sell services back to itself. In this case the management of car fleets for the ACT Government, ActewAGL, and others wanting to do business with them.

The Auditor’s report is online but the greatest hits are in the media release.

Amongst the highlights were a $460,000 sponsorship deal for the Brumbies in contravention of guidelines and common sense, a cash advance for the CEO, and $232,000 in corporate entertainment.

The Chief Minister has put out a media release explaining that the bad days (last period audited) are all behind them and the board has put more guidelines in place.

Which would be more reassuring if the old guidelines had been observed.

Back in July Richard Mulcahy was dancing around the Rhodium issues.

Interestingly no one is game to name this “Former CEO”.

UPDATED: Well the last Rhodium annual report to go online is for 2004-5 (which includes the period in question) and names the CEO as Deborah Clark.

FURTHER UPDATE: The Canberra Times has got its coverage coverage online with more details of Deborah Clark’s business methods including the number of staff and contractors who were related to her, and her lovely Lexus convertible being payed for by the Territory Owned Corporation. Matters have apparently been referred to the Police.

Here’s her picture from the annual report:

ANOTHER UPDATE: Liberal leader Bill Stefaniak is pulling out all the stops in linking this debacle to everything else that’s gone wrong with John Stanhope in charge.

MORE UPDATES: The Canberra Times has really warmed to the task today with a long piece on the reactions for the board which let Ms. Clark loot and pillage at will (members: ClubsACT president Bob Samarcq, Minter Ellison Consulting chief executive Margaret Coaldrake, media and publishing executive Ian Meikle, and Sydney investment banker Melanie Willis). The board were paid for their oversight of Rhodium during this time. There’s also a bio on Deborah Clark’s life and times. It will be interesting to see what sort of welcome she gets next time she pops into the Commonwealth Club.

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Deb foskey living in a Government supplied house while on $100k+, Porter employing her husband, Two shareholders (on our behalf)asleep at the wheel.

These guys nailed the libs, but will not do likewise – that moral superiority complex.

Deb Foskey has pointed out that ACTEW is similarly part of ACT govt, run with govt ministers as stakeholders.

I hope ACTEW doesn’t ever get a chairperson as nutty as the woman who drove Rhodium into the ground. Looks like the police didn’t find anything to actually charge her with though.

Two years since this and what has happened? Everything points to Stanhope incompetence, but voters let the teflon man to stand

The Board failed in their duty to carry out their role. They say they were duped. Not good enough. The Auditor-General also criticised the Shareholders (Stanhope and Gallagher). They argue they are innocent parties too. Looks like no-one wants to take responsibility. More than ever we need an ICAC type body in Canberra.

Welcome back, CC!

crazychester7:17 am 27 Sep 06

Oh bonfire I would have been sorely disappointed if any of you self-righteous pricks had managed to clamber down off your high horses.

We’ll see how crazy I am after I’ve finished dragging them, kicking and screaming back through the courts.

if you take your tinfoil beanie off it looks OK.

crazychester3:32 pm 26 Sep 06

Can’t edit my own posts? Oh well, someone else will have to fix the page formatting. Odd it didn’t wrap to the page.

crazychester3:30 pm 26 Sep 06

Oops! Linky. Page 25 on.

link

crazychester3:28 pm 26 Sep 06

It seems Rhodium was involved in some questionable business practices well before the A-G’s report was released. Up until February 2005, staff were permitted to accept gifts from clients. Hells bells the company was only set up in December 2004. Clearly from his comments, Mulcahy was aware of this prior to 26 October 2005. Wonder where and when he heard about it and who else knew. One might hope it would be the sort of practice by a territory owned company that would make our less than illustrious leaders take a second look, especially when they’ve been discussing possible slush funds with Ms Clark a few mere moments before. Not to mention those substantial injections of taxpayer $’s. But alas, as usual that’s too much to hope for…..

CT, 20-09-06:
Senior managers also approved a $10,000 cash advance to Ms Clark in June 2005 when she lost her wallet while holidaying overseas.

So Ms Clark isn’t the only corrupt official involved here. What, she had 10 grand in cash in her wallet did she? Never heard of traveller’s cheques huh? I can’t quite figure what this had to do with Rhodium and why such a huge sum was involved. Struggling to join the dots. Maybe she was planning on picking up a couple of kilos of smack for the office Xmas party or something? Not bad going off on holiday a mere 6 or 7 months after the company was set up either.

CT, 21-09-06:
Mr Stanhope repeated his “enormous regret” yesterday at Ms Clark’s behaviour, but hit back at Opposition claims that he should have been aware of the problems earlier. “It is entirely inappropriate … in the extreme to suggest that a shareholder would override or supersede the responsibility of a board of directors and involve himself in the day-to-day management of a company,” he said. “That is fanciful and absurd.”

Oh Jon Jon, your capacity for bullshit is positively breathtaking. It’s a Territory owned company subject to both the Territory Corporations and C/W Corporations Act. As CM, I think you’ll find your duty to enforce the legislation takes precedence here. You’re not the only one in your government who doesn’t get that are you? And gee whiz! One of the other people who doesn’t get it is your fellow shareholder and trusty sidekick. Well, whaddaya know.

Anyway, keep up the good work Jon Jon. At this rate, we might actually see your sorry arse kicked out of office. Which, in my books, would be a far more humiliating and, therefore, fitting end to your woeful attempt at governing the ACT than the mere ignominy of electoral defeat.

(Read, aim and fire, your self-righteous flamethrowers, boys and girls.)

And the original clerks who have been there forever and know how everything works are out on their ear at 45/50 trying to find new jobs.
Outsourcing is a cruel joke.

Outsourcing is an expensive joke. What a few clerks used to do, now requires a whole company…oh no it bloody well doesn’t! Our rates and taxes go up and up, user-pays reigns, but services become less.

The Auditor-General (Tu Pham) had a go at the two shareholders (Stanhope and Gallagher) about this Rhodium matter. The Chief Minister was in high dudgeon this week, describing Tu Pham’s comments as “gratuitious”. His incredible arrogance will cost the ALP dearly at the next election.

Their pay used to be 80 grand. Up to 100 ish now i think, with a bit more for chief minister and deputy katy. you get a car though and a phone.
but you also can’t go out to dinner without people coming up to tell you what they think.

I wish you would stand for election. I hope the next election is a bit interesting. Labor is on the nose, libs are deadly dull. maybe we’ll get another mixed bag like the first assemblies.

She looks like a local person from a local town, and there’s nothing for you here. (Queanbeyan for the rest).

After watching Barr on motorsports Stateline tonight I’m seriously considering joining politics. If somebody as dumb as S7S or Barr can get gainful employment for several hundred G’s a year, I’m obviously doing something wrong.

Vote for me.

Barking Toad, Mulcahy as an alternative? Now that IS scary! Heavs and Vic Bitterman are right, the staff at Rhodium provide great service IN SPITE OF the goings on of the upper management. And the board – sure they didn’t know anything either. What were they being paid for?? A cushy part time job reeking in the $s? Some of you need to learn how to carry on a discussion without turning it into a personal attack on someone’s looks or marriages. These things do not go hand in hand with their ethics or ability to run a company!

I read somewhere that she won the Telstra “Businesswoman of the year” award…

…on the downside there’s probably a bunch of people in the motor and finance industries that will have to buy their own Brumbies tickets this year.

She must ‘present’ really well in person, to get these top jobs, and to get 3 husbands. She must then deteriorate in the long term, to then bring out the whistle blowers and the divorces.

Thumper, what’s wrong with you man: she’s a hottie!

I can’t believe how many of these women in power end up looking like men.

It is amazing that this went on for so long. If she had been a bit less over the top noone would have ever noticed(ie, no lexus and 10 grand holiday loans from the work coffers).
thank goodness for the whistleblower.

See, it’s true that you can’t trust someone who’s Tasmanian and who’s been married more than twice!

barking toad10:36 am 21 Sep 06

It’s an opportunity for the likes of Mulcahy to demonstrate if they have anything to offer as an alternative to the current incompetent incumbents.

And the board of this government company was paid? For what?

No doubt our brave mayor will point the finger of blame eveywhere but in his own direction but it’s just another example of how his leadership has got this town financially fucked.

Yeah, can’t sack a minister – they’re protected under the Bill of Rights!

A ministers head roll, mate this is the ACT….

I’ve just noticed she has a lovely little crucifix around her neck, just below her pearls; what a lovely touch.

Obviously she was on a mission from God!

I’ve also had nothing but excellent service when dealing with the staff of Rhodium. I manage a not insubstantial fleet where I work. Like Dean Bitterman though, I’ve only had to deal with worker drone level.

It just annoys me that other areas of government are getting so smashed by the budget and these clowns are running around doing this. It’s like the jokers in Treasury sitting up there with their 90inch plasma screens while the rest of us are using second hand commodore 64’s on black and white TV’s to save a few bucks. Cunts.

Where this this bitch live? I would like to send her some flowers for a job well done.

BTW, she came from totalcare I hear, who used to run the fleet.

Vic Bitterman9:08 pm 20 Sep 06

Hmmmmmmm

I’m a Rhodium customer, I lease (salary package) a car via them.

They are a great company to deal with, never had an issue.

But I’ve never had to deal with anyone higher than whoever can authorise a signature for the lease, or to field a phone call or two in regards to the package.

Based on the article this women is scum. She should go to jail for stealing and mis appropirating funds. Good on the whistle blower.

I’m fascinated to know what the government’s rationale was for owning a leasing company. Its not like there’s a gap in the market that the private sector fails to fill. There are dozens, probably hundreds of leasing companies around. Hardly core government business!

The other thing I’d like to know is where the CEO was recruited from and what her prior track record was, also who did the recruiting.

I just hope her house was burnt down in the 2003 fires and the school her kids go to is being closed.

Somehow I don’t think we’d be that lucky :-/

Although now that I look at her photo, she does seem to think she has Jesus on her side. Bloody Hypocrite.

I find this absolutely disgusting. Other services within the ACT government are basically subsisting on the budgets allowed and these people think that it’s a free for all. have they no morals?

Advance payments and nearly a quarter of a mil entertainment budget?
Never mind the milk of human kindness, gimme a go at the public tit.
Are they hiring? Where do I send my CV?

Well I’m fucked, my car is with Rhodium.

barking toad5:31 pm 20 Sep 06

If he coulda got selected that is

I remember starting work with the local council and being told that the (Carnell) govt had sold off thier vehicle fleet, then leased the same vehicles back, at several times the market rate, and that the exec who had signed it off had already moved to a cushy position with the new fleet owner, Maquarie bank. dodgy government dealings indeed. Perhaps it was to pay for the extra seats that went in at Bruce stadium shortly after

barking toad5:10 pm 20 Sep 06

No, seepi. I just suspect that in this case a dud was selected and the process may have been compromised because they wanted a sheila.

And yes, areaman, a bloke could have done the same if he was a dud.

Surely those charged with the responsibility of selection couldn’t have got it that wrong if they weren’t blinkered by a gender bias?

Because men have never, ever been involved with corporate scandals. That really has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read on the RA.

toad are you really trying to say that any woman in this job would have employed all their rellies, splashed out on a convertible and spent 10,000 while overseas on holidays?

I’m guessing those responsible for selection would be the Treasurer and Chief Minster, or their representatives.

If you really think that the only way they could do something incompetently was due to gender bias, then you really haven’t been following the news very well.

barking toad3:38 pm 20 Sep 06

Given the incompetence displayed by Clark I suspect the selection WAS made on gender.

Surely those charged with the responsibility of selection couldn’t have got it that wrong if they weren’t blinkered by a gender bias?

I doubt that Clark was appointed just because she’s a woman – incompetent/shonky men are never appointed just because they’re blokes, so why shoud she?

Which is not to suggest that people responsible for appointing her should be cleared from blame – just that I wouldn’t blame equity for this one.

barking toad1:44 pm 20 Sep 06

The dunderheads responsible for her appointment should also be held to account.

A case of selection based on gender in line with the bleeding heart leftie policy of the labor party?

Shareholders indeed collect the profits, but in a poorly run (and come on guys, this is a pseudo govt outfit we are talking about) company, most or all profit gets spilled along the way.

Given that the only “shareholders” of Rhodium are the Treasurer and Chief Minister one wonders where the buck ultimately stops?

Does anyone see rates and other charges going up again?

Didn’t the Federales tie some State/Territory funding to “competitive tendering” of certain Govt functions, perhaps Sonic can say its all the Lying Rodent’s fault.

Small companies exist to get rich, especially off government

But when it’s a Territory Owned Corporation we the people are entitled to ask for whom does the benefit lie in this money pump?

James-T-Kirk11:05 am 20 Sep 06

Sounds like the CEO simply did exactly what he should have done.

Small companies exist to get rich, especially off government.

10 points I say!

I think the CT today mentions the CEO by name.

This is fairly typical of what happens when govt tries to play business. The benefits of outsourcing are to do with resourcing and economies of scale, but the reality is that it rarely saves $$. On a small scale it’s pure stupidity.

They’d be better off managing it in-house, with the help of a contracted body or two who had done it all before and came with good references. That comment goes for most areas of admin, and some operations.

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