Minister must do more to rein in reckless spending by Sydney Metro: Greens
The Transport Minister needs to urgently act on the revelation today that potentially dozens more senior executives were set to be employed by Sydney Metro on bloated salaries well above public service levels, says Greens MP and spokesperson for transport Cate Faehrmann.
“The more we learn about the operations of Sydney Metro, the more we see evidence of reckless and unaccountable spending of taxpayers’ money”, said Cate Faehrmann.
“Considering the cost blowouts of the metro projects, particularly Metro West, the lack of transparency around how the overpaid executives at Sydney Metro are spending billions of dollars of taxpayers' money is completely unacceptable.
“With the leadership at Sydney Metro continuing to throw massive sums of public money at the private sector for questionable reasons, the Minister needs to do much more to ensure greater transparency and accountability at the agency.
“With all recommendations in the Metro Review pertaining to procurement or the use of contractors being kept secret by the Government, how can the public be reassured that any action is being taken?
“For the CEO to have signed off on a $30 million contract for Macquarie Group to provide advice that includes what to pay top executives shows extremely poor judgement. How can anyone think leaving it up to the likes of Macquarie Group to decide on salaries of senior executives will provide good value-for-money?
“The Government has repeatedly advised the public that it plans to achieve budget savings to prevent the Metro project from costing more than it already has. The Minister therefore needs to explain what action she took after finding out about this contract.
“Whatever model the Government ultimately adopts for the governance of Metro West should be reasonable and transparent in terms of public spend” said Ms Faehrmann.