Carillion’s former finance boss denies ‘being asleep at the wheel’
Former finance director Zafar Khan denies unbridled risk-taking lead to Britain’s biggest corporate demise in a decade
London — The former finance director of collapsed British construction firm Carillion denied being "asleep at the wheel" on Tuesday as MPs questioned whether the company had taken on too much risk, putting thousands of jobs on the line. Carillion, which employed nearly 18,000 people in Britain, collapsed on January 15 when its banks halted funding, triggering Britain’s biggest corporate demise in a decade and forcing the government to step in to guarantee public services from school meals to roadworks. The failure has ignited a row over Britain’s system of outsourcing public services — everything from hospital meals and prison security to the maintenance of nuclear warheads — to competing private companies who rely on government work for a large part of their income. "No, I don’t believe we were asleep at the wheel," former finance director Zafar Khan said. "I believe I did everything that I could have done essentially." His replacement as finance director Emma Mercer, who had held ...
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