A mayor who fought for the building of a controversial silicon metals plant in his municipality has a new job: working for the company behind the plant. As mayor, he pushed to give the company numerous concessions and tax breaks.
Stundin reports that Bergur Elías Ágústsson, the former mayor of the Norðurþing Province, fought hard to have a silicon metal plant owned by PCC Group built in his province. He was one of the signatories of an MOU between PCC Group and Norðurþing which included giving the company numerous concessions in order to make the construction more attractive to the company.
These concessions included a 40% discount on excise tariffs for the first ten years of operations, as well as 50% lower property taxes than the legal limit. The company will also enjoy a 30% discount on road construction fees. In all, the concessions amount to about at least 1 billion ISK. At the same time, financial support for the project from the municipality and the national government amounts to about 4 billion ISK.
Yesterday, northwest Iceland news site Feykir reported that Bergur had left his job as mayor. Next month, he will begin working for PCC Group, RÚV reports.
Bergur denies there was any pre-existing agreement between himself and PCC Group to begin working for them if he left his position as a public official.
PCC Group is currently building the plant, and while they do not mention Bergur by name on their page about the project, he does feature in this promotional video about the silicon metals plant.
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