Carillion fatcats ‘gorged on gold’

MP: Collapsed firm didn’t care about workers

BOSSES at collapsed outsourcing giants Carillion were too busy “stuffing their mouths with gold” from public contracts to worry about 2300 workers who lost their jobs, an MP claimed yesterday.

A investigation by two Commons committees recommended the directors of the firm should face disqualification for mismanaging company finances.

The work and pensions and business select committees said the board had presided over “rotten corporate culture”.

The MPs also called for accountancy firms who milked millions from the contractors for audit work to be investigated.

Carillion collapsed in January, leaving dozens of public sector contracts in the balance and thousands of workers and sub-contractors facing redundancy.

The select committees said the Government’s failure to tackle failures in corporate regulation allowed Carillion to become a “giant and unsustainable timebomb”.

Frank Field, chairman of the work and pensions committee, said the Carillion chiefs were “too busy stuffing their mouths with gold to show any concern for the welfare of their workforce”.

Business committee chairwoman Rachel Reeves said: “The company’s delusional directors drove Carillion off a cliff and then tried to blame everyone but themselves.”

Reeves said accountancy firms KMPG, PwC, Deloitte and EY “should also be in the dock for this catastrophic crash”.