A group of veteran public servants who were appointed to set up four water entities are collecting high salaries for work that no longer exists.

Jon Lamonte, Vaughan Payne, Colin Crampton and Michael Brewster were commissioned to run the Government's proposed water super-entities- until they were scrapped for 10 entities in April.

NZ Herald business journalist Kate McNamara says their salaries were conceived in 2022, before Three Waters was cut down.

"There'll be employment contract fish hooks in there. What it would cost to diminish the pay, I don't know, but it wouldn't be nothing." 

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