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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/milliondo...s-jaws-drop-20110523-1f0xo.html#ixzz1ND47I0hmMillion-dollar cleaning job makes jaws drop
Tom Reilly
May 24, 2011
"The Emperor of Parramatta" ... Denis Fitzgerald. Photo: Tim Clayton
IT WAS an ''extraordinary'' suggestion. The chief executive of the Parramatta Leagues Club, Bob Bentley, was in the boardroom with one of his biggest contractors.
Across the table was Hamilton Guerrero, the owner of the Blue Magic Cleaning Services, who had been invited in to talk about the work of his employees.
But Bentley had a bigger issue to raise - the $1.4 million a year his club was paying Blue Magic. The new chief executive thought it was over the top. And so too, it is alleged, did Mr Guerrero.
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Illustration: Cathy Wilcox
When told Parramatta would put the cleaning contract to tender, it is claimed Mr Guerrero made a pitch to keep his firm in the job. He said he could lower his company's fee by $600,000 a year, a source who was in the room on October 26 last year told the Herald.
"It was extraordinary, the sort of suggestion that just makes your jaw drop," the source said. "When does any contractor offer to slash their fee by almost half? Something wasn't quite right."
Bentley asked where the money from the contract was going if the company could afford such a drop. "We couldn't get a proper answer to that," says the source.
Mr Guerrero has confirmed his firm received about $27,000 a week from Parramatta but denied any offer to slash its fee.
"No I did not say that I would cut the fee," he said. "I did not have that conversation.''
Questions about the contract come after the Herald raised issues last week of corporate governance when the club was run by Denis Fitzgerald, known as the "Emperor of Parramatta".
He was the chief executive of the leagues club and football club for 30 years. On Friday it was revealed he advised the leagues club to sign a lucrative contract with the poker machine company Aristocrat, a firm in which he held $1.6 million worth of shares.
When the board voted on whether to sign a deal with Aristocrat, Fitzgerald did not make his financial conflict clear.
Blue Magic had been contracted since 1985 to clean at the club, originally for $3075 a week. There is no history that the contract was ever put to tender.
Investigators hired by Parramatta after Fitzgerald's departure have raised suspicions about the company's staffing levels, whether its foreign-born workers had proper visas and whether Blue Magic employees were being paid their full entitlements.
Parramatta admits it owes Blue Magic about $200,000.
Blue Magic ceased cleaning duties at the club in November and hasn't sought to recover that money.
Do you know more?
tom.reilly@smh.com.au
