Saturday, November 8, 2008

Living High Off The Hog....Ghiz Did The Right Thing...

We've all heard the expression "Living High Off The Hog" but surely this is one of the greatest example of this age old expression. Make no mistake about it Robert Ghiz was bang on when he called in the auditors and closed down this plant. If you read the Auditors report http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/la_auditor_nat.pdf it's clear that some of the shareholders were thieves at best. If there is any criticism of why the plant was shut down by Opposition Leader Olive Crane it should clearly be directed at her own members....
Hog plant doomed from the start: report
TERESA WRIGHT
The Guardian
The hog plant forced into receivership last year cost the province over $4 million in losses due to an apparent lack of financial monitoring by government coupled with a lack of outside funding for the plant, say findings from the provincial auditor general’s investigation of the plant’s finances. The audit, released Friday, points to numerous problems with the financial arrangements brokered between the P.E.I. Lending Agency and the Natural Organic Food Group (NOFG) pork plant. In his report, Auditor General Colin Younker is highly critical about the millions of dollars in loans advanced to the company by the government despite the fact $2.8 million in repairs was needed, but never secured. Without this capital financing, the plant was doomed from the beginning, Younker’s report states. “The requirement for the (owners) to have capital financing in place prior to the close was waived by executive council on assurances the (owners) would seek external financing. The effect was that the company was under-capitalized,” the audit report says. Premier Robert Ghiz requested the audit after his government called the plant into receivership last December. At that time, the owners of the plant had asked the province for $2 million to aid in plant operating costs, but this was on top of millions already given to the plant since 2006 by the current and previous governments. Instead of granting the funding request, Ghiz called in a loan of $2.1 million, forcing the company into receivership.

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