The former director of Orkuveitu Reykjavíkur has responded to a recently released scathing report on what went wrong at the company, saying he considers the report filled with “inaccuracies and half-truths”.
As reported, Margrét Pétursdóttir, the chairperson of the investigation committee, told reporters that while the company did well with projects under its direct control, it also expanded operations into areas it did not directly control. An unclear mission, coupled with a lack of control on how investors spent their money, profit losses, high dividends, and delays in raising fees all helped contribute to the company’s ultimately crushing debt.
As an example of how badly things turned out for OR, in 2011, the city discussed financially supporting the company through a special fund created in the wake of the economic collapse. The fund was estimated to be at around 10 to 12 billion ISK. However, an annual report showed that in September 2010, Reykjavík Energy was in debt to the tune of some 230 billion ISK.
DV reports that Guðmundur Þóroddsson, the former director of OR, is less than pleased with the findings of the report.
Guðmundur contends that the contents of the report got their figures wrong in terms of what the cost of operating the Hellisheiði plant actually was, and where their power output stood. Overall, he contends, Hellisheiði was “one of the most efficient geothermal plants ever built in the world.”
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