WELLINGTON - Contact Energy directors are asking shareholders for a 111 per cent increase in their annual fees.
They want $465,000 to be shared among six directors.
The rise comes less than a month after Contact confirmed that chief executive Paul Anthony was paid $3.6 million in the September year.
The increase proposal will go to a vote of shareholders in Wellington on January 25.
Last year New Zealand workers got an average pay rise of 1.4 per cent.
Contact directors were paid a total of just under $220,000 last year, excluding special payments for work on the sale of Contact Energy.
The former state-owned company came in for political criticism before the election because of Mr Anthony's $3.6 million payout.
Contact chairman Phil Pryke was paid $66,145 last year, with other directors on about $33,000. Also, four directors were paid $136,515 in fees for work on preparing Contact for sale. Mr Pryke got $40,500 for that work, at $150 an hour.
Contact did not spell out how the increased fees would be shared among the six directors but it was normal for the chairman to get about double the fee paid to other directors.
That suggests Mr Pryke would be in line to get close to $140,000 from Contact, on top of his salary as fulltime executive of Australian firm Lucent Technologies.
Last year, taxpayers paid Mr Pryke $324,000 a year for his role as part-time chief executive of the Health Funding Authority, a figure that "flabbergasted" the Labour opposition.
Last month, Prime Minister Helen Clark lashed out at the multimillion-dollar packages paid to business high-flyers, saying they were causing resentment in the wider community.
In the year to September Contact made $155 million. - NZPA
Directors vie for fee rise
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