Steve Kent backpedals on Nalcor executive bonus issue

Just hours after saying that controversial executive bonuses at Nalcor would be "discussed" by cabinet, Deputy Premier Steve Kent was backpedalling Thursday, saying such matters are a Nalcor issue.

Kent was questioned about the bonuses during a scrum with reporters in St. John's Thursday morning.

He said he was "very concerned" about the payments and said there will be "further discussions" within the department of Natural Resources and around the cabinet table "about bonuses generally and how they should be applied within our Crown corporations."

His comments followed criticisms of Nalcorfor paying generous bonuses almost $400,000to its top officials in the wake ofwidespreadpower outages in January 2014 during an especially cold period.

The outages became known as #DarkNL.

Later in the day, Kent called CBC News to say he misspoke.

"That was really pure speculation on my part," he said in a voice message.

"I wasn't aware and am not aware of any government plan to do any kind of review, which I probably left the impression that there was something more happening."

He added, "it really is an issue for the board of Nalcor at this point. They are fully responsible for compensation issues."

Kent said he agreed withNalcor CEO Ed Martin's prior statements thatHydro needs to pay bonuses to attract and retain talent.