More Withheld News From Dublin Docklands Developers Autocracy!
A fair & balanced government report is pasted below this rant.
Board Dynamics Have Totally Changed At DDDA.
'There is no magic wand for DDDA's Board of Monkeys'
- Said The Charwoman of the Hanover Quay Monkey House.
[Accurately Misquoted]
Last week the publication of DDDA's dodgy accounts exploited Child Rape. So this week who would expect additional bad news withheld by DDDA's Arschbishop of Governance? After all DDDA clearly signaled its high Governance Standards by holding back DDDA's 2008 "Accounts" for 320 days until Ireland's Child Rape Day (November 26, 2009). Will professors teach this progressive democratic standard of governance to the future leaders of Ireland at university?
Just a few days after the 2008 accounts, DDDA is back spinning. Or possibly totally lying in line with DDDA-Anglo-Irish-Bank practice. DDDA says taxpayers must cough up only €250 Million to cover 2010 losses engineered by the Fools & Crooks. Using government-approved NAMA-Enron-accounting the true figure is thus exactly €999.99 million plus interest, a liability which in no way will be withheld from the public.
Like the other obstructionist arschbishops DDDA's arschbishop freely admits to feeling the pain of the people. DDDA's Governance Arschbishop freely admits DDDA is laced with conflicts of interest. But that's all OK because the conflicts of interest are not really serious because they 'do not result in financial rewards to board members' none of whom has ever owned or directly profited from a flying pig.
So as implied, who outside the board actually gets the money and other benefits from the finally acknowledged conflicts of interest?
- Architecture friends-of-friends of the board?
- ARUP's friends?
- Who gets the insider tips on autocratic planning diktats?
- Who gets the insider jobs?
- Which TDs and Councillors control social housing for supine local votes?
- What about the deaths from €250 Million worth of closed hospital beds?
- ETC.
The conditioned-monkey culture at DDDA has not been rooted out, said the bishop in De Bananen Bar. Nevertheless in the total absence of even a shred of evidence the governance arschbishop brass-necked this absurdity:
'the dynamics of the [DDDA] board had changed and was different to how it was in the past.'
The governance arschbishop thus admits the monkeys are in a different tree looking for mangoes instead of the usual bananas.
[Image: KPMG Executive Channel Search For DDDA CEO].
As we speak DDDA is looking for another CEO for the scapegoat opportunity. The 'dynamics of the board of monkeys has changed and is different to how it was in the past'. Because this time they will be much more careful.
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Above Rant As Reported by Theocracy's The Fair & Balanced Broadcaster
Building and property
DDDA chair signals further losses
Tuesday, 1 December 2009 18:12The huge losses come after the Authority ,whose board included by directors of Anglo Irish Bank, engaged in massive property speculation. The losses will now have to be picked up by the taxpayer.
Charwoman Niamh Brennan told a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Heritage and Local Government that with time, effort, commitment and focus the business of the DDDA will be brought back on track.
Ms Brennan said no final decision had yet been made on planning regarding the new headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank. She also said the DDDA has new pension liabilities of €6.5m, which she said is less of a deficit than last year, when it amounted to €7.3m.
She said the dynamics of the board had changed and was different to how it was in the past. Ms Brennan said that, while there are some conflicts of interest, they are not systematic and do not result in financial rewards to board members.
The meeting was called following the publication last week of the DDDA's annual report and accounts which revealed that the Authority ran an operating deficit of €27m in 2008 as opposed to a €3m surplus in 2007.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2009/1201/ddda.html
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1 comment:
http://crimson-observer.blogspot.com/2009/12/begging-bowl-out-at-dublin-docklands.html
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Begging bowl out at Dublin Docklands
IS it necessary for the taxpayer to invoke the Doctrine of Mental Reservation when reading the recently published 2008 annual report of Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), evaluating the opaque character of its corporate governance since its inception in 1997 and its overall viability? Its annual report lacks candour. It fails to inspire confidence in its board and taxpayers’ should be alert lest they be plundered to compensate for a disgraceful episode of buccaneering speculation.
DDDA lost €212.9 million in 2008 and its net assets withered from €177 million in 2007 to €26 million in 2008. This did not arise through the diligent prosecution of its corporate mission - to be a paragon of sustainable development in the inner city that would offer a major contribution to the social and economic prosperity of Dublin and the whole of Ireland. But it did occur as a consequence of harum-scarum commercial and residential property speculation that could only have succeeded if potential customers had become submerged with overwhelming and unsustainable debt.
The former city dump at Ringsend was purchased for €412 million in 2006, a price well in excess of what it was professionally valued at that time. This property was valued at €50 million on 31 December 2008, a write-down of 87%. The former chief executive informed an Oireachtas committee in February 2009 the revaluation would be 30% lower than the purchase price – a clear inconsistency within a matter of weeks. He has departed from DDDA but there is no explanation in the annual report of either the circumstances, or the terms, of his departure.
Sixty percent of the Ringsend development was to have been residential with the most basic unit, a one bedroom apartment adjacent to an incinerator and the city water purification facility, purportedly intended to sell for €500,000. The average gross household income of a person(s) with a mortgage in 2006 was €58,190 so a prospective purchaser with a 92% mortgage would be borrowing €460,000, or 8 times income. The 2008 annual report bemoans ‘the huge problems caused to DDDA by the collapse of the property market’. Perhaps it would be more candid and honest to recognise that the final episode of the economic terrorism of the Celtic Tiger had been averted from a consumer perspective.
The 2008 audited accounts for this state agency include a charge of €5.43 million for legal fees. The Master of the High Court consistently criticises lawyers’ costs but there is no indication as to who the recipients of this money are; what the basis for the costs are, or any rational foundation for the taxpayer to see a basis of value for money. Given that there are reputedly 800 unemployed solicitors and presumably a proportionate number of under-employed barristers, this is a very large unexplained cost incurred by an agency that has never winced when it comes to throwing money around.
The board of this agency has failed its stakeholders, gambled its resources and lost. The chances of DDDA ever accomplishing its original mission are as probable as me becoming the Mayor of Monte Carlo. Does the Minister for the Environment, Heritage & Local Government intend to declare this a failed agency and close it, or is this to become another example where speculative profits are the trophy of speculators’ but uninsurable risks and the flotsam and jetsam associated with these, are the burden of taxpayers' while they distract themselves planting bluebells?
http://crimson-observer.blogspot.com/2009/12/begging-bowl-out-at-dublin-docklands.html
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