Council GM offered $215k to quit: ICAC
A corruption inquiry has been told two Sydney councillors offered a veteran bureaucrat a $215,000 incentive to leave as they tried to ensure their preferred candidate was given a local government job.
Jim Montague, the former general manager of the now-defunct Canterbury City Council, told the ICAC inquiry on Tuesday he met with councillors Michael Hawatt and Pierre Azzi after Christmas 2014 when they told him he had to retire by August 2015.
He said they offered him a severance of 76 weeks' salary which was equivalent to $428,000 or double what he was entitled to.
"They didn't have the ability to (make that extra payment), they didn't understand that," Mr Montague told the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Sydney.
"I didn't give it a lot of thought. I more or less decided after I left I wouldn't accept the offer."
Mr Montague said the councillors were trying to get him to reconfirm their choice of Spiro Stavis for the vacant position of the council's planning manager.
He reported their Christmas offer and a subsequent approach to ICAC in mid-January 2015.
Mr Montague told the inquiry on Monday his first choice for planning director was a woman with extensive senior management experience.
But he thought Crs Hawatt and Azzi were concerned about her gender and her attitude towards development.
Despite preferring her or another candidate, the then-general manager offered Mr Stavis the job in early December, before withdrawing it soon afterwards when a headhunter raised issues with Mr Stavis.
The corruption watchdog is investigating claims of improper conduct at the now-defunct council - in particular the actions of Crs Hawatt and Azzi.
NSW government MP Daryl Maguire quit the parliament after recorded phone calls between him and Cr Hawatt were played at the inquiry during which the pair discussed the "margin" they'd get from the "quick sale" of property worth up to $51 million.
