Thursday, 26 March 2020 15:23

Put it down

Written by The Hound

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Your canine crusader notes that the woke folk at Landcorp – sorry Pāmu – were recently crowing about recording a net profit after tax of $68 million for the half-year ended 31 December 2019.

While this may look good on the surface, your old mate reckons it is not as flash as it seems. Actually, in real terms, the result for the half-year was a gain of $22 million.

However, once you strip away the $7m the state farmer slashed in costs and a one-off gain of $6m from the sale of its shares in Westland Dairy – then it is more like $13 million.

However, when you consider Landcorp’s total asset base is $2.16 billion – then it is a very poor return for taxpayers.

This further begs the question just how chief executive Steven Carden can justify an annual salary of $795,950 when his organisation’s return is so poor and why taxpayers are still lumbered with carrying this dog?

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