14 AUGUST 2019

The Government should cut its losses and scrap unnecessary parts of the $25 million “Mobility as a Service” initiative, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “This is more proof that bureaucrats do not make good tech tycoons, no matter how much taxpayer money they throw at geeks in Silicon Valley.”

“The $5.5 million sunk so far into “Mobility as a Service” has delivered next no visible value for taxpayers, so it’s alarming that another $19.5 million is being committed. The current Government should take this chance to break with a dumb decision by the previous one.”

“The Transport Agency should simply make its data available for private app developers to play with. There is no need for the agency to reinvent the wheel, developing expensive new services to compete with the likes of Uber, in an industry that is notoriously risky and hype-driven.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media