The Board of Northern Ireland Water has announced that the company’s Chief Executive, Laurence MacKenzie, on his own initiative, has tendered his resignation.
Following discussion, the Board said that it had accepted his resignation as CEO and agreed terms of settlement “consistent with his contractual entitlement”.
The Board will now recommend to the Minister for Regional Development, Conor Murphy, MP, MLA, that he approves the settlement terms proposed by the Board. Mr MacKenzie is also tendering his resignation to the Minister as a Director of NI Water. Subject to Ministerial approval, Mr. MacKenzie’s resignation takes effect from midnight on Friday 7 January.
The Board is recommending that Trevor Haslett, Director of Engineering Procurement, be appointed as acting CEO and Board Director of NI Water.
Once the new arrangements are in place the Board will then commence a full and open recruitment process to appoint a new CEO. In a statement, the Board said:
“The Board wishes to acknowledge the significant contribution made by Mr MacKenzie to develop open and transparent governance arrangements within NI Water in line with public service obligations and the efficiencies achieved within price control demands.
Mr MacKenzie said his resignation had been entirely his own decision, commenting:
“I readily accept and recognise that there were aspects of the way in which we handled the situation that could have been better. In particular our ability to communicate with our customers and let them know the reasons for and the times at which they were going to be taken off supply. This failing added to the considerable inconvenience experienced by our customers; for that I apologise sincerely both personally and on behalf of the organisation.
“A fundamental part of the work I have been engaged in over recent days has been around setting up procedures to ensure that failing is not repeated.”
However, he also noted that substantial water restrictions continue to be a fact of life for the Republic of Ireland.
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