Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
7 August 2013

Joyce’s Jobs Plan - a $23m MoBIE Contractor Blowout

New Zealand First leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says that information released under the Official Information Act shows a massive blowout on contractors to keep Steven Joyce’s Leviathan above water.

Figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MoBIE) show that from 1 July 2012 - 31 May 2013, $23.574m was spent on 532 contractors.

The figures also show that between 1 July 2012 - 26 June 2013 the Ministry had 71 redundancies, resulting in over $3.7m paid out in redundancy packages.

“So it’s down with the lower cost civil service and up with high-cost private contractors.

“No wonder they call him Mr Fix-it as he’s been fixing up their lavish lifestyles for them.

Mr Peters says that the large-scale redundancies and huge blowout on contractors is symptomatic of a Ministry in strife.

“What we have here is evidence that staff are under severe pressure after Joyce’s botch-job merger, so he’s started contracting National Party cronies.

“While some of these private contractors will be genuine, there is enough evidence to suggest there will be some that are not.

“How many more Aaron Gilmores are there over at MoBIE with their heads in the trough?

“With a $23.574m blowout on contractors it’s about time Joyce comes clean,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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