The latest damning reports on Wellington Water’s procurement failures is not just a scandal — it’s a case study of everything that is wrong with New Zealand’s infrastructure management.
Wellington Water is just the latest long-term consequence of the demolition of the Ministry of Works and Development in the 1980s and 1990s. Ideology driven economics labelled the Ministry as a 'captured provider' which should be broken up and supervised by a series of policy focused agencies. The net result has been a major reduction of capability within central and local government agencies of technical specialists who can have public service careers. Corporatizing functions such as Wellington Water has created units which use private sector pay rates as their benchmarks. Wellington city once had a City Engineer as one of its top roles. Where is the public service-based expertise which should have picked up the overcharging long before an expensive and contracted formal enquiry was needed. Time perhaps for a Ministry of Works 2.0 which takes a long term and public service focus on infrastructure, instead of government being captured by contractors.
Not just infrastructure of course, a similarly embedded culture problem occurs throughout NZ Government procurement, albeit most often to a less dramatic extent. A contract let here a contract let there, leveraging anti competitive procurement panels with no way in for years. Cosying up to the same firms that have been providing expensive, mediocre services forever, ignoring new players who may be lean, mean and able to provide a better service at lower cost. Though why bother with significant extra effort and potential risk of real competitions, when the career safe approach has always been to opt for a well known incumbent, with the extra penny just par for the public money course.
Roading contracts are another case in point.... the same potholes reappear after "repairs" have been completed by the same contractors throughout the motu. Surely we have more competitive contractors than the same two we keep seeing?
Wellington Water is just the latest long-term consequence of the demolition of the Ministry of Works and Development in the 1980s and 1990s. Ideology driven economics labelled the Ministry as a 'captured provider' which should be broken up and supervised by a series of policy focused agencies. The net result has been a major reduction of capability within central and local government agencies of technical specialists who can have public service careers. Corporatizing functions such as Wellington Water has created units which use private sector pay rates as their benchmarks. Wellington city once had a City Engineer as one of its top roles. Where is the public service-based expertise which should have picked up the overcharging long before an expensive and contracted formal enquiry was needed. Time perhaps for a Ministry of Works 2.0 which takes a long term and public service focus on infrastructure, instead of government being captured by contractors.
Not just infrastructure of course, a similarly embedded culture problem occurs throughout NZ Government procurement, albeit most often to a less dramatic extent. A contract let here a contract let there, leveraging anti competitive procurement panels with no way in for years. Cosying up to the same firms that have been providing expensive, mediocre services forever, ignoring new players who may be lean, mean and able to provide a better service at lower cost. Though why bother with significant extra effort and potential risk of real competitions, when the career safe approach has always been to opt for a well known incumbent, with the extra penny just par for the public money course.
Roading contracts are another case in point.... the same potholes reappear after "repairs" have been completed by the same contractors throughout the motu. Surely we have more competitive contractors than the same two we keep seeing?