A west Wales MS has criticised Dwr Cymru executives over exorbitant bonuses and raised Teifi pollution in the Senedd. 

Mid and West Wales MS and leader of Welsh Liberal Democrats Jane Dodds challenged Labour First Minister Mark Drakeford over his comments that the nation ‘is lucky’ to have a non-profit water supplier. 

During First Ministers’ questions yesterday at the Senedd, Ms Dodds pointed out to the First Minister that although Dwr Cymru is non-profit is has still paid out excessively large bonuses for its executives in recent years on top of an already high base salary and that she says the Welsh Government should be given a stronger oversight over. 

After consistent public and political pressure, including from the Liberal Democrats, Welsh Water announced its CEO will forgo bonuses this year.  

However, chief executive Peter Perry, chief financial officer Mike Davis and executive director Chris Jones took home performance-related bonuses worth £931,000 during the last two years, which in addition to base salary means the three men shared pay packets totalling £2.6m over two years.  

This is despite the company pumping raw sewage into Welsh waterways 100,000 times during the last 12 months alone and several Welsh rivers such as the Wye, Usk and Teifi being in extremely poor health. 

Jane Dodds also called for powers over water to be fully devolved to Wales so the Senedd could have better oversight of water pollution. 

She said: “While Mark Drakeford is right to say Welsh Water is a non-profit, it is wrong to suggest that this means there isn't large amounts of money being diverted from the network into bonuses for chief executives.  

“In many ways, Welsh Water’s ‘non-profit’ status is hiding the problem. Meanwhile, children are playing in rivers full of sewage and farmers are being blamed by Labour politicians.  

“It is galling for so many of us that as we see our water bills rise, sewage dumping in our rivers and seas has increased, alongside the bonuses for water company bosses.  

“We should have to rely on CEO’s doing us ‘a favour’ by foregoing their bonuses, there needs to be much better regulation of the sector and that is what the Welsh Liberal Democrats will continue to push for.” 

A Dwr Cymru spokesperson said: “Our Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer confirmed earlier this month that they will not receive any variable pay/ bonus for the financial year 2022-23. 

“Our executive remuneration is decided by the company’s Remuneration Committee which comprises only independent non-executive directors who are advised by independent consultants. No-one takes part in decision-making regarding their own pay. The Executive Remuneration policy is subject to approval by our independent Glas Members and the annual Directors’ Remuneration Report is also subject to an advisory vote by the company’s Members in the same way as a listed company’s shareholders approve executive remuneration.    

“The figure given refers to total executive remuneration and benefits for 2020 and 2021 combined. It includes a third Executive Director who left the business in May 2020 (there are currently only two Executive Directors). It also includes accruals to a group pension scheme which cannot be taken as cash benefits”.