SOEs competing at taxpayers’ expense

Competition for work between state owned enterprises Asure New Zealand Ltd and Agriquality New Zealand Ltd is occurring at taxpayers’ expense and must cease, PSA national secretary Richard Wagstaff said today.

“PSA is extremely concerned about this issue and has met with the Minister of State Owned Enterprises to urge him to review the status of Agriquality and Asure as independent SOEs. It is our belief that they should be merged into one organisation to ensure better co-ordination, co-operation and delivery”.

Richard Wagstaff said Asure has been tendering for work which has traditionally been the domain of Agriquality and for which it does not have the requisite skills and resources to complete. If the two agencies were fighting over work, neither was in a position to focus on serious issues such as exotic diseases outbreaks.

“Their commercial competitive relationship is placing New Zealand’s vital bio-security at risk and compromising our reputation as a high quality, low risk agricultural nation.”

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