A good piece in the Herald by Max Rashbrook on the high costs of PPPs (public private partnerships) with the new Wiri prison costing over $21m before a single sod is turned or brick laid because of the complex contract negotiatons which have to cover every possible continency for the next 30 years.
Earlier this year the PSA brought out the director of the PSIU David Hall from the UK, an international expert on public spending and public private partnerships. It was David who introduced me to this great quote from London Mayor Boris Johnson – “In other countries this would be called looting, here it is called the PPP” after Londoners were told they would have to plug a £460m tube funding gap from a PPP venture.
David’s done a lot of research into PPPs and the facts don’t stack up.
PPP is privatisation with a better name. It’s no surprise that National is in favour of them: getting rich on the public purse is in their DNA. What is more concerning is that people like Len Brown want to use them to help build infrastructure in Auckland.
Are we really so bereft of ideas as a nation that PPPs are the best we can come up with?
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress