Page 616 - Week 02 - Thursday, 24 March 2022
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the question: how many other procurements have there been like the Campbell Primary School modernisation project?
According to the Integrity Commissioner, the answer is that it is “very unlikely” that “this kind of thing has happened only once”. During the hearings, the Integrity Commissioner also put out a public call for information from the community “in relation to suspected improper conduct in ACT government procurement processes”. This really is extraordinary. Unbelievably, that was not the most astonishing moment of the hearings.
Appearing later in the week, the Deputy Chief Minister and minister responsible for the Campbell Primary School modernisation project stated that “there was nothing wrong that was done and the procurement processes were followed”. I am not sure that she and I read the same report. The only possible explanation for this is that the Deputy Chief Minister is in such denial about the significance of the probity issues raised by the Auditor-General that she has literally formulated her own version of the truth or she is hiding something. This culture of secrecy seems to be a common thread running through the Barr Labor-Greens government.
Later in the annual reports hearings, the Auditor-General stood by his report on the Campbell Primary School procurement. In fact, he stated that he has growing concerns about procurement and will continue to pursue it, having received a number of representations and completed several audits on this theme in recent years. Unbelievably, the Auditor-General implied that there may be an emerging pattern.
Back in 2018 the Auditor-General found that the land swap with the Tradies club in Dickson was potentially a breach of the planning act and did not achieve value for money for the territory. A damning quote from the report notes:
Significant weaknesses in the Directorate’s management of the tender means there is a high risk it has relinquished considerable financial value to the … (Tradies).
It would not be a stretch to describe this as crony capitalism.
Another Auditor-General’s report, this one from 2021, looking into procurement exemptions, found:
… exemptions … were used in approximately a fifth of ACT Government procurement over the past three years. This represents 770 procurements, valued at approximately $395 million.
$395 million is an enormous amount of public money going out the door without tenders. Whilst of course there can be good reasons for using exemptions in procurement, it does raise further questions about value for money and the culture of secrecy surrounding government procurement practices.
I wonder what the Greens members make of the culture of secrecy with their coalition partners. What actions are the Greens cabinet ministers taking to foster the right integrity culture in their portfolios? They have been oddly silent on this and will no
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