Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 31/99) - Amid charges of mismanagement and lack of accountability, the NWT Development Corp. is trying to get its financial house in order.

Minister of Resources Wildlife and Economic Development Stephen Kakfwi faced criticism from MLAs during the last sitting of the legislature -- for matters including the corporation's failure to have the proper number of board members in place, its inability to provide certain financial statements and questions about the viability of subsidiaries like Great Slave Lake Forest Products Ltd.

But Fred Koe is hoping to turn things around. An accountant by training, Koe was appointed corporation president at the end of March -- the seventh in the Dev Corp's nine years of operation.

"Obviously, there's a lot of history in the corporation before my time, and I'm not really in a position to assess what went on," Koe said, "but what I have to do is look at and assess the situation as it is now, what the directors are after and how to do it."

The auditor general of Canada's annual review began shortly before Koe's arrival and he's taken over the corporation's own operational audit to assess not just the Dev Corp, but also its eight subsidiaries and 13 joint-venture initiatives.

"Basically, our mandate is to create employment and income opportunities and more or less try to focus on places where other venture capitalists will not go -- like Lutsel K'e," he said. "We try to make jobs with the intent of making businesses."

But Koe said the ongoing audit is looking at all aspects of activity and policy.

"We have certain guidelines and it equates, for example, to about $10,000 per job that we subsidize today," he said, "but even that is under review because it was set back in 1990."

Koe met with board members last week and said he was still waiting to learn what the corporation's new budget will be. The president said funding comes mainly, but not exclusively, from the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development. He said Dev Corp can also borrow from outside sources, like the Bank of Canada, and last fall negotiated $6 million in credit from the Aurora Fund. Koe said the $1.6 million borrowed from the fund already was then lent to Red Dog Mountain Contracting out of Tulita.

Great Slave Lake forestry

Like Koe, Dan Walton is also a relative newcomer -- having assumed the role of general manager at Great Slave Lake Forest Products in Fort Resolution just last July.

Also like Koe, Walton finds himself in a wait-and-see position.

"We're literally on hold here -- we don't have a budget," he said last Tuesday. "We finished sawing last year's logs last fall."

Walton said the sawmill has been dormant since then, with 23,000 cubic metres of timber on hand, just himself and his secretary on the job and up to 25 seasonal labourers not working.

Walton said the Financial Management Board is currently reviewing the business plan he submitted in March. Great Slave had previously been the target of criticism because, as deputy minister Joe Handley said, its subsidy level was almost three times higher than the $10,000 target.

But Walton echoed Koe in saying the focus must be on the future.

"In the past, it was just lack of management, a lack of vision -- there are a million reasons why things didn't work and you can point fingers," he said, "but even the Dev Corp recognized the problem, and my mission is to identify the problems and turn it around."

Walton said more community involvement is just one of the options being considered to guarantee Great Lake's long-term viability.

"We're looking at the community for funding -- there's only been