Here we go again. Another Pan Am Games CEO, another gold plated severance package.
This time, it’s new CEO Saad Rafi who will be collecting $428,000 in so-called severance pay when his 19-month contract ends.
You’d think that Premier Wynne and the Pan Am Games Organizing Committee would have learned their lesson when the former Games CEO Ian Troop was fired for questionable expenses, and taxpayers were on the hook to pay his $500,000 severance package.
But they didn’t.
Under the terms of this new contract, Mr. Rafi is going to get severance pay even if he isn’t terminated. And when the games end, Mr. Rafi will still be paid severance even though he hasn’t been fired or let go.
That’s not how severance pay works in the real world. The purpose of severance pay is to compensate a long-term employee for the losses that occur when that employee gets laid off.
The dates of the Pan Am Games are clear. Mr. Rafi knew full well when he took the job what the beginning and end dates would be. He’s not getting “laid-off” after the games, his contract is simply coming to an end.
It looks suspiciously like the Ontario government and the Games Organizing Committee are trying to pay Mr. Rafi double the salary for 19 months of work. They can claim they are paying Mr. Rafi $428,000 per year, but in realty Mr. Rafi will be collecting over $1.1 million.
To put this in context, the Prime Minister made $327,400 last year, and he is running an entire country. Mr. Rafi is running a four-week event this summer.
We can’t fall back on the platitude that this is the price for talent. Because that would mean the Games are being well managed. They aren’t. The Games are pegged to cost over $2.5 billion, even though the organizing committee budget was originally $1.4 billion. The province added extra projects, at a cost of more than a billion dollars. Subcontractors at the Hamilton stadium have not been paid, and have registered liens against the still incomplete property. Of the 1.2 million tickets, only 300,000, or 25 per cent, have been sold. The Auditor General has warned of the ballooning security costs, which at $247 million is now more than double the original estimate. Between 2013 and 2014 the number of employees on the Pan Am Games Sunshine List has more than doubled – from 32 to 66.
When all is said and done, the cost of these Games will be over $2.5 billion, and any cost overruns will be borne by the province. These are costs the Games won’t be able to recoup, especially if they don’t start selling tickets.
The province and the Games shouldn’t leave taxpayers to pay for a badly negotiated contract on top of this mess. The province should renegotiate this gold plated severance package, or Mr. Rafi should decline to take it.
Unless that happens, by the time the Games are over, the taxpayers will have forked over nearly a million dollars in severance for two Pan Am Games CEO’s. Taxpayers deserve better value for their money than that.
Christine Van Geyn, Ontario Director
