Govt. warning on TINZ Corruption Index

The recently released Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International has New Zealand and Denmark ranked #1 as the least corrupt nations... So a great work but still room for improvement apparently.

And one of the areas for improvement is centered around Government Procurement! Something close to our hearts as the NZOSS submitted a formal response to MBIE about the same thing. This Stuff article echoes one of our concerns in that the use (or misuse) of the All-of-Government contracts can mask abuse particularly in the IT sector. Some agencies appear to be misapplying a cross government contract as an AoG contract to avoid having to go to market for some services.

This market avoidance is costing New Zealand in the long term for two reasons. 1) it is limiting the types of services that can be delivered to those available through a monoculture and 2) significant amounts of taxpayer funds are moving offshore rather than providing benefits to New Zealand businesses and being fed round the local economy.

Remember that 15-24% of every dollar earned in New Zealand returns to the Govt. in tax revenue alone along with another 15% when those earnings are spent in the local economy.

A dollar sent overseas is a dollar lost.