Tenders anger engineers

Press, 1 November 1982, Page 6

Tenders anger engineers

Wellington reporter

The Engineers' Union has described as “a shocking indictment of the Government” the: very small slice of the offsite development work for the energy-based development; projects that has gone to New Zealand’s, heavy engineering firms. The Government should never have allowed so much machinery to be built overseas and imported, said the national secretary of the Engineers’ Union. Mr Ernest Balt

Heaccused the director of the''’Employers’ Federation. Mr;J v W--Rowe, of doing the Government's job for it in abusing the workers when he should be abusing the Government. Ifbffsite work was? done overseas the Government did not; have to worry about, wages rates. If done here, the Government would worry that there would be applications, to break its wages freeze. ‘tftat is why . the Government does not want this work done in New Zealand,” Mr-Bali said. “That was why the'eontractors had been encouraged to get as much of the t work done: overseas as

possible, when it ought to be encouraging as much work in New Zealand as possible to conserve overseas exchange and to provide employment opportunities.” His ' comments were prompted by a report from the Heavy Engineering Research Association (H.E.R.A.). This report showed that only 3.7 per cent of the offsite heavy engineering work for New Zealand’s biggest petro-chemical project, the synthetic petrol plant at Motunui in north Taranaki, was being done in New Zealand.

The H.E.R.A. study (“The Press,” October 28) showed that by the end of 1983, nearly all the offsite work being done in New Zealand would be completed, leaving the heavy industry firms with two-thirds of their capacity uncommitted to any ’ work.

Much Of the offsite workhas been contracted to Japanese companies. HERA. personnel believe Japanese interests may have deliberately undercut normal levels of tendering to secure the work.

The tenders have been put out by the contractor, Bechtels. and the Government’s supervising agency: — the

Synthetic Fuels Corporation — has been careful to check that- dumped materials are not being used. Dumping of raw materials is fairly easy to detect, but it .is much harder to detect when the product that might have been dumped, is included in."made-up” manufactured products in engineering. Staff of the Shell-BP-Todd consortium in Taranaki, in recent -years, have found Japanese tendering to have become progressively less competitive in comparison with Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and even the United States.

H.E.R.A. personnel wonder if Japan has deliberately under-tendered on New Zealand’s energy-based development projects to gain access to the technology. The Motunui plant is the first of its kind in the world. The thought is that if Japan gains access to it, then it can gain from New Zealand the knowledge it needs to design and build future such plants around the world.

The: engineering industry in Japan is in deep economic trouble. H.E.R.A. personnel wonder -if Japan has not deliberately under-tendered to -work and as an investment for its future.