Rt Hon Winston Peters

New Zealand First Leader

Member of Parliament for Northland
11 JULY 2017

Audit-Office ‘180 Degree Turn-Around’ on Fujixerox New Zealand Welcomed

NZ First appreciates the Acting Auditor-General doing the right thing by examining in detail, the contracts that the government has signed with FujiXerox NZ; implicated in a $500m fraud.

“Two months ago the Audit-Office said there was nothing to see over FujiXerox NZ but two months on, and the Acting Auditor-General has done something his suspended boss never did,” says New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland, Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“That’s to say they should look at these All-of-Government contracts with FujiXerox. We hope they will get inside the deals to see what they entail and just how FujiXerox won its business from the taxpayer.

“Conflicts of interest should be on the list since it’s something National Ministers glaze over.

“One whistle blower told us that Managed Service Agreements signed by schools saw print volumes inflated in something sales staff called ‘hydraulicing’. With FujiXerox now doubling its termination fees per machine, it shows a definite hardening of attitude by that company.

“And if ‘sponsorship’ was a major selling point of FujiXerox into schools, the $247m write-down of “Sponsorship Cost” and other matters by FujiXerox NZ’s forensic auditors, will likely punch holes in already stretched school budgets.

“Taxpayers want to know if what FujiXerox did to win business was both ethical and legal. Certainly, if senior sales personnel for a company that made tax losses could drive luxury European cars and run courses in Paris, it suggests otherwise,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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