Shellharbour ALP councillors were grilled yesterday over why they ignored staff advice and awarded the city's waste contract to a Labor Party donor, allegedly costing ratepayers about $1 million extra.
Counsel assisting the NSW Government inquiry into Shellharbour City Council has repeatedly raised concerns about the way councillors interfered in the waste tender process.
Yesterday Labor councillors Helen Gillett, Barry Bird and Tim Hore were questioned about their reasoning for giving the contract to Thiess.
Shellharbour's eight ALP councillors caucused the decision late last year.
Were they aware the company was a NSW Labor Party donor?
No, they told counsel assisting the inquiry, Daniel Meltz.
Thiess is listed as a donor to the NSW Labor Party and also the NSW Liberal Party on the Election Funding Authority website.
The Queensland-based company donated $57,908 to NSW Labor and $10,000 to NSW Liberal.
Were they aware that Thiess cost the council considerably more than the company recommended by the panel of independent consultants and council staff?
Cr Gillett said she didn't consider it a significant price difference.
Mr Meltz asked would a difference of over $1 million be considered significantly more expensive.
Gerry Holmes, legal representative for the councillors, objected.
The main reason Cr Gillett did not follow the staff selection was she was concerned the company lacked health and safety accreditation, but she did not raise this with officers.
Cr Bird was concerned for the Thiess employees, who stood to lose their jobs just before Christmas.
Whereas Cr Hore was worried the recommended company would go "belly up" from not charging enough.
"I didn't take that vote very lightly as I considered there was a large amount of money between the first and the second tender that we chose," he said.
"I was very concerned that the first tender was too cheap," Cr Hore said.
Mr Holmes raised the issue of companies "buying contracts" by giving a low estimate and then six months into the deal jacking up the price.
When senior council officers took the witness stand at the inquiry last week, Commissioner Richard Colley was told that councillors had not followed the regulations for how tenders were awarded.
Instead of either following the recommendation to award the contract to the company selected by the evaluation panel, or rejecting the selection and requesting the contract go out to tender again, councillors simply awarded the tender to the incumbent. The councillors considered their role in the tender process to be similar to other decisions brought before them, where they were free to not follow the officer recommendation.
Cr Bird questioned why the tender would come to councillors if they were not supposed to assess it.
"Just because the panel made a decision, it wasn't a fait accompli," he said.
There is some disagreement about how much the two tenders varied in price.