James Madden
THE chief executive of the firm charged with rolling out the National Broadband Network has distanced himself from a bribery scandal.
The scandal continues to dog global telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent, the company now providing key advice to NBN Co.
Mike Quigley, the chief executive of NBN Co, and the company’s chief financial officer, Jean-Pascal Beaufret, both worked as senior executives at Alcatel between 2001 and 2006 when millions of dollars in bribes were paid to foreign officials in order to secure key contracts.
Mr Quigley said yesterday that neither he nor Mr Beaufret, who were handpicked by Kevin Rudd to head NBN Co, had any knowledge of the fraudulent activity at the time.
“This investigation has been going on for five years,” Mr Quigley said. “During that entire five-year investigation, neither Jean-Pascal Beaufret nor myself were once questioned by either the SEC (the US Securities and Exchange Commission) or the Department of Justice. They were not interested in us.
“So these connections that I read about in the press, frankly, they are just misinformed.”
Yesterday Tony Abbott again cast doubt on the duo’s suitability to take charge of the federal government’s $36 billion network, given that the Alcatel bribery scandal occurred on their watch.
“The same people who were responsible for the culture of lax management at Alcatel are now running the National Broadband Network, and the last thing we want is lax management in charge of a $50bn-plus enterprise, particularly given this government’s appalling record of mismanagement when it comes to the stewardship of public money in things like the school halls program and the roof batts program,” the Opposition Leader said.
The SEC found that senior Alcatel executives had been “severely reckless” in their ignorance of the fact that the company had been paying millions of dollars in bribes, but Mr Quigley said yesterday that he disagreed with the assessment.
“In hindsight it would have been nice if that had been caught but when it was detected it was reported to the authorities and the company co-operated fully,” he said.
Mr Quigley said he and Mr Beaufret were not involved in the awarding of contracts by NBN Co for work on the network where Alcatel was a bidder.
Earlier this week, Julia Gillard dismissed the Coalition’s bid to link the bribery scandal to the NBN, describing it as an unfounded “personal smear” against two respected businessmen.
Mr Quigley said discussions between NBN Co and Telstra over the telco’s participation in the network were continuing.
“I accept that it’s taken some time but I would also be remiss if I tried to hurry it beyond what was a proper process,” he said.
Source: www.the Australian.com.au
