The CIT board is a laughing stock. They should apologise to the community and resign, every one of them because ignorance is not bliss when it comes to being a director, says IAN MEIKLE in another “Seven Days”.  

AS Hardy would say to Laurel, so Andrew Barr might to Chris Steel: “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

The dogs are barking and the Integrity Commission is very publicly circling the Canberra Institute of Technology.

And “Stan” Steel has looked impotent through the weeks since the stunning disclosure of $8.5 million over five years to ostensibly one contractor, a “complexity and systems thinker” who, in some measure, was mentoring the CIT CEO Leanne Cover and doing, well, who knows what else?

Certainly not the CIT board, who were paying him $10k a day. In a damning admission to the minister, then-chairman Craig Sloan wrote that the procurement process for contractor Patrick Hollingworth’s company Think Garden was undertaken by the CIT executive within CEO Cover’s financial delegations. 

I’ve been a CEO and I’ve been on many boards of companies large and small, and community organisations, and I am gobsmacked that the CEO of CIT could wave through nearly $5 million of whatever without any reference to the board. 

By way of example, I was CEO of a publishing subsidiary of a public company. We were turning over more than $600 million annually in four countries and my delegation was less than one per cent of hers!

Worse still, Sloan then goes on to make an admission that I believe sinks the credibility of the whole board: “The CIT board has agreed that based on the information we have at hand it is not currently in a position to provide assurance to you that this contract represents value for money.”

That’s when something unpleasant hit the governance fan, followed by this: “The CIT board was not involved in the procurement and was not briefed on the evaluation process or the value of the successful contract.”

Despite having “temporarily stood aside”, surely, that’s got to be goodbye, Leanne Cover?

Minister Steel has conceded the CIT’s reputation had been “seriously damaged” as a result of the nature of the contracts (importantly, not the contractor), but expected the board would be able to “reset” with Lundy as chair. Really?

Lundy has been on the board since June last year and was there when Hollingworth’s $4,999,990 contract ($10 short of attracting the attention of the ACT procurement board) passed through, untroubled by any board curiosity earlier this year. Inescapably, she’s in the same frame. 

I don’t agree with Steel’s “reset” nonsense. The reputation of the board is so sullied that only a reboot will fix public confidence in the CIT. 

Maybe it’s useful here to list the board members: Sloan was chair and has now been replaced (his seven years of service was up) by Labor luvvie Kate Lundy, his deputy. The other directors are Cover, Raymond Garrand, Prof Francis Shannon, Jane Madden, Tahlia-Rose Vanissum, Sam Mills (elected staff member), Paul McGlone, Ros Jackson and Louise Starr (student representative). 

I list them because I reckon these mushrooms owe it to our community to apologise and resign.

Company directors cannot claim ignorance, they are always responsible for not having asked questions when things go wrong. This is where the buck stops. 

I know the law precludes the minister from sacking the directors (oddly, he can appoint them), but why isn’t he, hands on hips, demanding their signatures? 

He surely cannot have any confidence in any of them, just as we are developing a similar feeling about him.

AND while we’re on the subject of the new CIT chair (don’t do it, Kate), some years ago, at a charity art show, I bought a delicate, pretty watercolour in the belief that, painted by Australia’s first female prime minister, it would be worth, oh, gazillions. 

Senator and painter (and former builder’s labourer) Kate Lundy didn’t reach quite those heights and it was left to Julia Gillard, whose painting prowess is a mystery, to claim the history. 

Our watercolourist cruised through seven Senate elections, representing the ACT for more than 19 years and holding various ministerial positions including the Minister for Multicultural Affairs, the Minister Assisting for the Digital Economy, Minister for Sport and the Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation.

These days, the 54-year-old is a professional director and has her work and her reputation cut out if she perseveres with the CIT.                         

Her board positions beyond the CIT are: director, NRMA; acting chair of Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre; director, Electro Optic Systems Holdings Pty Limited and director, National Youth Science Forum.

Alas, not a mention of her painting prowess. Whatever palette of creative smarts she thinks she can bring to the CIT, I still like her delightful art.

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon.