Subsidiaries were poorly managed
That was then, this is now, says new prez

NNSL (June 04/97) - "We've known what the auditor general's report was going to say for some time now," says Stephen Kakfwi, the minister responsible for the Northwest Territories' Development Corporation.

Kakfwi assumed responsibility for the corporation from Don Morin, now premier, at the end of 1995-96, the fiscal year the report deals with.

Since then a new president, Glen Soloy, has been appointed and most of the senior managers have been replaced.

"The subsidiaries were not only poorly managed, but in most cases were losing substantial amounts of money," said Kakfwi. "The accountability had to be better, in terms of how the corporation conducted business."

On April 1 the corporation kicked off a new restructuring plan, said Soloy. He and senior managers have been developing since he arrived.

A big part of the plan is increased emphasis on marketing products produced by development corporation businesses.

Today that's the job of the newly formed Arctic Canada Trading Company. Soloy added, however, the corporation is stuck with some of the investment decisions made in the past.

"One of the venture investments was NCS-TV. It's never going to pay us dividends, let's be honest ... my view on venture investments is a little different, and I guess that will be seen in anything we've done.

Among the changes are the way subsidies are paid to subsidiaries.

Soloy said the new formula encourages subsidiaries to operate independent of subsidies.