Bechtel senior consultant for M.W.D. probe

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 5

Bechtel senior consultant for M.W.D. probe

Parliamentary reporter Details of the proposed review of the Ministry of Works and Development by an international corporation, Bechtel, have been given by the Minister of Works, Mr Friedlander. Bechtel’s civil and mineral division will send one of its senior consultants to New Zealand to undertake the review. A Wellington firm, Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Company, will help Bechtel with accounting, costing, and reporting. Heading this Wellington team will be Mr M. S. Morris, who was a member of the group which reviewed the financial management and control in the Government on behalf of the Audi-tor-General in 1978. With Mr Morris will be Mr K. T. Kindle, who led a review of the cost allocation procedures in the Railways Corporation last year, and Mr P. Kane, an assistant audit manager. The terms of reference include reviewing the Ministry’s current and proposed systems for project management and to devise means of project control. It will cover planning and scheduling, financial control, estimates and budgets,

resource requirements, design and quality control, procurement, construction management, reporting procedures, and project viability assessment. A former Commissioner for the Environment, Mr I. Baumgart, will do a special review of the Ministry’s Water and Soil Division. He will review the effectiveness of the water and soil directorate in serving the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority, and its advice and management services on water and soil conservation activities to central and local government. This review will also see if any of the directorate’s work could be done better by someone else.