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The outgoing head of Auckland Council’s Watercare company says the political and media focus on his $ 775,000 salary was the last straw in his decision to resign.
Raven Jaduram said that the media attention on her salary, in a time of unprecedented drought, was something neither Watercare nor her family needed.
Jaduram said Stuff that “a lot” was from Mayor Phil Goff commenting that his successor would be paid much less, suggesting that somehow the salary was the work of Jaduram himself.
However, he said that was not the only reason, and that he had told the chairman of the board last year of his intention to resign once he had served six years in office.
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Auckland has unprecedented water restrictions, banning most outdoor use, after two years of record six-month droughts, leaving the water supply at 67% compared to the usual 90% at this time of the year. year.
Mayor Phil Goff, whose board oversees Watercare, has pointed the finger at the company for, in his opinion, not managing the drought as well as it could have.
Jaduram said he would have been reluctant to leave if he had not been able to secure the $ 224 million in funding needed to progressively boost the water supply over the next year.
“By July of next year, we will have so much water and water treatment capacity to reach 2030-35,” he said. Stuff.
Todd Niall / Stuff
Raveen Jaduram, CEO of Watercare, at a press conference on the need for water restrictions in Auckland.
He said he always worked in cycles of three and six years, and his first three years as CEO had been to create a new culture, and the second three to raise the profile of Watercare both globally and nationally.
Jaduram said that over the past few years on water reform in the country, there has been an opportunity to do more outside the city, such as managing networks in the neighboring Waikato district.
He said that any breakup was never about one thing, and while he could personally handle the focus on how much he earned, it affected his family and was a distraction for Watercare.
When his resignation was announced in August, Jaduram told staff it was a matter of time.
Water care / Supplied
Auckland’s second largest water storage lake at the Upper Maungatawhiri Dam in the Hunua Ranges, only 49% full during drought.
“When I was appointed CEO in October 2014, I gave the board a commitment to stay for six years and that time has come,” he said in a statement posted on the board’s monthly agenda.
Jaduram said that he did not set his own salary and told him RNZ It was not up to him to say what he should pay his predecessor.
It will leave in late October, by which time it expects the water supply lakes to have recovered to 75 percent, a level at which Watercare would be comfortable to overcome even a dry summer.
