Something in the water
January 6, 2011 § 1 Comment
Thousands left without water during coldest december on record
Laurence Mackenzie’s resignation (well, lets call it ‘assisted’ resignation) as head of NI water shocked no one, even if during the height of the crisis he looked set to brazen it out.
It’s been a tricky 18 months for the scot, with crumbling victorian infrastructure to contend with, tricksy political point scoring at Stormont, and civil servants intent on bending the rules in their direction, Mackenzie was never going to have a pleasant time of it. Mind you, I’d be willing to bet the £250,00 a year made up for most of that.
Over the past two weeks he really didn’t cover himself in glory, he didn’t even cover himself in air freshner and baby wipes like the rest of us had to.
Telling people to ring a permanently engaged helpine (there were rumours circulating that there was only one person manning the phones, and they’d ran off, leaving the phone off the hook) and log on to a crashed website, were never going to win him any allies.
But intrguingly, it was his management style (or rather lack of it) that sank him. According to some, Mackenzie didn’t even let his senior executives know what his plans were.
Much has been made of the fact that NIW is publicly owned, ie: poor infrastructure due to lack of private investment. But, in fact, people in Northern Ireland contribute a significant part of their yearly rates ( the Northern Irish equivalent of council tax) to the company, in some parts of the country that can be as much as £100 a year.
Considering that most of Northern Ireland last week had no clean water for cooking, washing or even basic hygeine, the next person in charge is going to have quite a task in convincing people here that they’re getting their money’s worth. And if they think this will make back door privatisation easier, they’ll need a complete PR rethink to sell that idea to a disgusted and angry public.
Diary of a fledgling Journo 
Of course the communications collapse was unforgiveable, but what could they have done on the ground in advance to avoid the deluge that followed the thaw? If so many of the bursts were on private property, does that not mean we as citizens have to take some responsibility? What about student flats which were empty over Christmas and from which water poured as pipes ruptured? Where were the landlords? Where were the factory owners whose premises overflowed? Mackenzie may be the fall guy, but are we all in this together?