GOVERNMENT NEEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 June 1939, Page 6

GOVERNMENT NEEDS

SUPPLIED BY RAILWAYS WORKSHOPS TENDERING NOT CONSIDERED ADVISABLE. STATEMENT BY MINISTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) 'WELLINGTON, This Day. "The Government is unable to accede to a request that the Railways Workshops should be required to tender in competition with private enterprise for the supply of certain equipment for Government departments,” states Mr, Sullivan (Minister of Railways) in a letter to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in reply tc a recent communication. The Government having already decided, states the Minister, that the Railways 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 entailed a 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 made to supply certain requirements from the Railwaj’- Workshops. With regard to a reference to sound costing, tile 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. He added that the Railways Department places quite a lot of work with private manufacturing concerns, and that policy would be continued whenever it was desirable to do so.