NO TENDERING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21362, 3 June 1939, Page 6

NO TENDERING

Supplies For Government Railway Workshops’ Output By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, June 2. The Government is unable to accede to the request that the railway workshops should be required to tender in competition with private enterprise for the supply of certain equipment for Government Departments, states the Minister of Railways (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) in a letter to the Associated Chambers of Commerce in reply to a recent communication. The Government having already decided, states the Minister, that railway workshops were to be utilised for the supply of Government requirements which the workshops could conveniently carry out, it would, he thought, be clear to the executive that no good purpose would be served by the calling of tenders. The Government realised, of course, that the preparation of tenders incurred certain expense and took up no little time, and it was desired to obviate that in the interests of outside firms when a decision was madi to supply certain requirements from the railway workshops. In regard to the reference to sound costing, the Minister said he desired to- give an assurance that the railway workshops were operated on the most economical basis and that taxpayers were fully protected under the Government’s policy, as any profits made by the railway workshops were reflected in the amount returned to the Consolidated Fund by way of Interest on railway capital expenditure. The Ministei' added that the Railway Department places quite a lot of work with private manufacturing concerns and that policy would be continued whenever it was desirable to do so.