The ouster of two senior Pan Am Games executives last week was necessary as the organizing committee moves into its final phase, said CEO Saad Rafi, adding it had nothing to do with performance.

Senior vice-presidents Louise Lutgens (community and cultural affairs) and Elaine Roper (human resources) were let go on Thursday, just three months after the firing of Rafi’s predecessor as CEO, Ian Troop.

Their departures brings the number of Pan Am SVPs down to six, but the group will soon welcome Neala Barton, who worked as press secretary to former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and more recently to ex-Alberta Premier Alison Redford. She joins the Games next month as SVP communications and media relations.

“We wanted to make a conscious move from the planning phase of these games to the operations and game delivery phase,” Rafi told the Star. “I wanted an organization that was going to be a little bit more flexible on decision-making and be able to respond to very fast-paced developments going forward…It meant we had to surplus two of our executives and rearrange the work.”

He said the Games “hope to” make public the details surrounding severance packages for Lutgens and Roper once they have been finalized. “We promised transparency,” he said.

Neither Lutgens nor Roper returned requests for comment on Saturday.

In 2012, Lutgens earned $232,845.80 plus $14,557.42 in taxable benefits, while Roper brought in $292,774.92 plus $17,565.24, according to the provincial Sunshine List.

The Games, currently priced at $2.5 billion, have come under heavy public scrutiny due to rising costs as well as controversy over expense claims of some of its executives.

When Troop, who made just over $500,000 a year including taxable benefits, was fired as CEO last December, he walked away with a $534,800 severance package. Rafi, his successor, made $428,000 in his previous posting as Deputy Health Minister.

Rafi said the human resources portfolio will now be delegated to the Games’ senior legal counsel, Karen Hacker, while community and cultural affairs will fall to public affairs SVP Amir Remtulla, who once worked as Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s chief of staff.

Progressive Conservative Pan Am critic Rod Jackson said the firings are “indicative” of the problems the troubled Games have been experiencing over the past year. “I think the Games are in far more chaos than anyone is willing to admit,” he said.

Jackson described Barton’s hiring as a patronage appointment, but Rafi said the fact that she once worked for a Liberal premier played no role in his decision to hire her.

He said the Games had been in talks with Barton for some time, and it was “an entire coincidence” that she would be joining the executive shortly after her most recent boss, Alison Redford, resigned as Alberta premier.

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“She knows the Ontario market for certain, every corner of it,” he said.

Barton said she was “thrilled” to be joining the executive. It’s still unclear how much she will earn. She pulled in an annual salary of $135,000 while working for Redford.