Opinion
Opinion: It staggers me that we still have the other Councils and some ICC Councillors wanting to keep the WasteNet tender open for the next 12 months. This tells me that they will then get their preferred tenderer in at the expense of those from Southland disAbility Enterprises who currently work there.
If one reads the Weekend Herald for this weekend, there is a very large expose regarding Smart Environmental, a company that has 14 council waste management contracts, nation wide.
The article is a damning reflection on the company and the Easter Waikato Council. The Auditor General is also investigating.
The main concern for me is what happens to our current tender process, if this company is our Wastenets’ preferred tenderer ?
It would be interesting to have Cr Thomas (who represents ICC) and Mayor Tong (who represents SDC) on WasteNet to comment.
The key issue is did they now of this pending expose and just solder on anyway.
There is no excuse for Cr Thomas not knowing as I emailed our Mayor and all 12 Councillors at 3.34pm on the 5th of June 2019, the same day as the 5pm contentious WasteNet ratification meeting. I advised our learned Councillors that industry sources had alerted me to this pending expose by the Herald paper.
I advised our learned Councillors that they should get the ICC Chief Executive to contact the Chief Editor of the Herald and find out if WasteNets’ preferred tenderer was not the one about to be exposed for serious issues.
I suggest that that would have been prudent due diligence. I would be surprised if they acted on that advice.
I note that there are issues in the media regarding the same company after it lost the contract in Queenstown Lakes district.
I think it is long overdue that WasteNet be advised to close the tender process and invite SdE to negotiate a long term waste management contract.
That is what 23,000 signatories to a petition wanted.
Nobby Clark
Spokesperson
Invercargill Ratepayers Advocacy Group
NOTE: The NZ Herald story is behind their paywall here