Government procurement practices should not be
skewed towards political targets, says the
New Zealand Taxpayers’
Union in response to new
calls for indigenous procurement
policies.
Union
spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says,“Government
procurement should be focused solely on delivering value for
taxpayers. That means procuring the company that is best
equipped to deliver a given service at a competitive
price.”
“The Government is already undermining
this principle with a five percent target for contracts
awarded to businesses that can present themselves as
Māori-owned or Pasifika-owned. Now the company that
verifies these businesses wants the Government to increase
its spending target for these companies.”
“This is
a disturbing creep in the mission of procurement that will
inevitably see less competitive tenders. That means either
higher costs for taxpayers, lower-quality services, or both.
It’s also incredibly unfair for those businesses – many
of which employ Māori – that will miss out on contracts
purely because they couldn’t tick the right diversity
boxes.”
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