Page 1764 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2022

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like to see it done by the Auditor-General, who has the powers under the Auditor-General Act and, of course, with the oversight committee that can potentially look into this at a later date and provide maximum transparency as we investigate these matters. I move the following amendment that has been circulated in my name:

Omit all text after “That this Assembly”, substitute:

“(1) notes that:

(a) Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) receives the majority of its funding from the ACT Government, and is accountable to Canberra taxpayers;

(b) CIT has awarded seven contracts for consultancy services valued at $8.87 million since 2017 to one individual and their associated business entities;

(c) three of the contracts were sole-sourced, and four went to open tender. The same individual and their associated business entities continued to win each tender;

(d) the value of contracts has steadily escalated since 2017;

(e) one of the earliest contracts in 2017 was valued at $86 280.58; the contract in 2022 was valued at $4 999 990.00;

(f) the reported daily cost of contracted services has risen from $1058.82 per day in 2017 to $9980.02 per day for the contract signed in March 2022, plus associated travel and related costs;

(g) despite these steeply increasing costs, the services reported to be provided by the contractor have not substantially changed over the same period of time;

(h) the services provided by the contractor are predominantly mentoring and workshops for the Chief Executive Officer and executive team;

(i) it is not clear, and there is very little publicly available information, as to what outcome or results have been delivered by the contractor;

(j) the contract documents for these procurements do not contain information that would otherwise normally be included in ACT Government contracts for consultancy services, such as:

(i) names of specified personnel providing the services;

(ii) hourly or daily rates;

(iii) milestone payment amounts and dates; and

(iv) defined deliverables and due dates;

(2) further notes that having been advised by CIT of the latest $4.99 million contract, the Minister for Skills wrote to the Chair of the Canberra Institute of Technology on 7 June 2022 seeking a response within five working days on the following matters:

(a) how and why CIT determined that the work to be procured under the most recent contract for $4.99 million represents necessary, efficient and appropriate expenditure of public funds;


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