10 May 2001 Edition
Colombian lambasts Smurfit at AGM
BY ROISIN DE ROSA
``Why do the people in my country count for less than the people of yours?'' Colombian Nestor Ocampo asked Michael Smurfit in his address to the Jefferson Smurfit Annual General meeting last Friday. ``May your shares burn in your hands, your wages on your conscience. They are made on the backs of sub-contracted workers, for whom Smurfits accepts no liability, and a deforestation programme of uncontrolled fires which continue to damage my country's native forest, to turn our rainforest into paper pulp.''
Smurfits had brought Victor Heraldo, a manager in Colombia, all the way to the Burlington Hotel in Dublin to explain about fires and winds and the good job the Smurfit organisation is doing in social affairs, employment and the environment in Colombia.''
Smurfit himself peered over his spectacles and said Mr Ocampo need not take up further time of the AGM, because a special room had been hired upstairs at lunchtime when he could explain his case to whoever chose to listen. ``We are a very responsible company. I've just received a very congratulatory letter from the President of Colombia,'' he said, without a trace of irony.
It was the arrogance of money, the contempt for those without, whose every glance, over his spectacles, bore an angry, irascible threat to those who dared question it. This was Michael Smurfit at his AGM of over a thousand shareholders, who came mostly to complain at the catastrophic fall in the share price and the collapsing value of their small holdings, at a time when the chairman gave himself a wage of £5 million - a mere £100,000 a week, give or take a few thousand.
Their uncomprehending hurt received no palliative, sympathy, justification or recompense. Michael Smurfit would go on next year just as he had before, as was his undoubted right, to claim 2.5% of company profits as his own special reward. The AGM was only a mildly unpleasant peccadillo for Michael his two sons and his board as they strode past the shareholders to the posse of waiting Mercs. Ray McSharry, member of the board and chairman of the remunerations committee, explained it all. Michael Smurfit had earned £10.5 million in 1995, but now there is a cap on his bonus, and ``he's worth every penny of it.''
``Would Mr. Smurfit tell us about his donations to charity?''
``We don't give out that information. Just a list of good things for this country. What I do with my money is my own business.''
``What political donations were there? Why not answer the question?''
``There is a state requirement to list political donations. Obviously we haven't.''
Shane Ross had some questions. He wanted to itemise, one by one, the close connections of the Board with the Bank of Ireland. He started on the right. Smurfit interrupted. ``You will not use this as a platform to sell your newspaper.'' Ross relented. Michael Smurfit does not like the press. He opened his AGM asking the group of photographers at his feet repeatedly to move away. They didn't.
``When are you going to retire, we want to know''.
``When I feel like it,'' he replied. And there you have it.
``Why do the people in my country count for less than the people of yours?'' Colombian Nestor Ocampo asked Michael Smurfit in his address to the Jefferson Smurfit Annual General meeting last Friday. ``May your shares burn in your hands, your wages on your conscience. They are made on the backs of sub-contracted workers, for whom Smurfits accepts no liability, and a deforestation programme of uncontrolled fires which continue to damage my country's native forest, to turn our rainforest into paper pulp.''
Smurfits had brought Victor Heraldo, a manager in Colombia, all the way to the Burlington Hotel in Dublin to explain about fires and winds and the good job the Smurfit organisation is doing in social affairs, employment and the environment in Colombia.''
Smurfit himself peered over his spectacles and said Mr Ocampo need not take up further time of the AGM, because a special room had been hired upstairs at lunchtime when he could explain his case to whoever chose to listen. ``We are a very responsible company. I've just received a very congratulatory letter from the President of Colombia,'' he said, without a trace of irony.
It was the arrogance of money, the contempt for those without, whose every glance, over his spectacles, bore an angry, irascible threat to those who dared question it. This was Michael Smurfit at his AGM of over a thousand shareholders, who came mostly to complain at the catastrophic fall in the share price and the collapsing value of their small holdings, at a time when the chairman gave himself a wage of £5 million - a mere £100,000 a week, give or take a few thousand.
Their uncomprehending hurt received no palliative, sympathy, justification or recompense. Michael Smurfit would go on next year just as he had before, as was his undoubted right, to claim 2.5% of company profits as his own special reward. The AGM was only a mildly unpleasant peccadillo for Michael his two sons and his board as they strode past the shareholders to the posse of waiting Mercs. Ray McSharry, member of the board and chairman of the remunerations committee, explained it all. Michael Smurfit had earned £10.5 million in 1995, but now there is a cap on his bonus, and ``he's worth every penny of it.''
``Would Mr. Smurfit tell us about his donations to charity?''
``We don't give out that information. Just a list of good things for this country. What I do with my money is my own business.''
``What political donations were there? Why not answer the question?''
``There is a state requirement to list political donations. Obviously we haven't.''
Shane Ross had some questions. He wanted to itemise, one by one, the close connections of the Board with the Bank of Ireland. He started on the right. Smurfit interrupted. ``You will not use this as a platform to sell your newspaper.'' Ross relented. Michael Smurfit does not like the press. He opened his AGM asking the group of photographers at his feet repeatedly to move away. They didn't.
``When are you going to retire, we want to know''.
``When I feel like it,'' he replied. And there you have it.