Government contracts = rip off

AckwelFoley

Yea, i know.. not another one of those rip off threads..

But...

I was listening to a news report on the radio this evening about a report that a job that was quoted for 5,000 on a building jumped to 15,000 when the opw sanctioned it.

Other examples were 16,000 to put an electric shower in a garda station and 4000 to put down some floor covering.

..and people ask why dont the government build houses for people and not builders? I think the above examples are good enough reasons.

In my view the reasons for this is that the public sector i caught up so much in red tape, where the private sector is purely driven by profit and profit based on efficency.

The examples ive heard on the radio really make my blood boil, is there nobody in the opw with any sort of sence to know that they're being ripped off?


In the example below in the article, it costed 1000 quid to change 3 light bulbs
http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/ireland/contractor-paid-1000-to-change-three-garda-station-lightbulbs-408662.html

So, if you think about it - if there is this waste in what is a transparent example can you imagine the amount of waste in social welfare and health care?

javaboy

Moved from After Hours.

AckwelFoley

javaboy wrote: »

Moved from After Hours.

*shakes clenched fist*

tedstriker

It's the guards, what else would you expect. If you could quantify the sitting around drinking tea and eating hob nobs in monetary amounts then you'd find that 1000 for 3 bulbs is cheap.

I'm not trying to say that some guards don't do great work but in fairness 75 metres from Pearse street garda station you can see anywhere up to 30 heroin addicts dealing, drinking, taking drugs, and generally being a social nuisance. Every day. All day long. I've seen the cops walk past them many times and saying nothing.

Sleipnir

tedstriker wrote: »

It's the guards, what else would you expect. If you could quantify the sitting around drinking tea and eating hob nobs in monetary amounts then you'd find that 1000 for 3 bulbs is cheap.

I'm not trying to say that some guards don't do great work but in fairness 75 metres from Pearse street garda station you can see anywhere up to 30 heroin addicts dealing, drinking, taking drugs, and generally being a social nuisance. Every day. All day long. I've seen the cops walk past them many times and saying nothing.

You think it's the Gardai themselves who put in a shower? This really has nothing to do with the Gardai, it's the OPW who do works such as this on publicly owned building.

AckwelFoley

Sleipnir wrote: »

You think it's the Gardai themselves who put in a shower? This really has nothing to do with the Gardai, it's the OPW who do works such as this on publicly owned building.

..well i sure hope the opw dont buy the hob nobs and tea for the Gardai

j1smithy

Well they don't share those hob-nobs with visitors anyway, Went down to the station to help with a line-up, myself and the other lads there were told to get a glass of water from the tap to make ourselves comfortable!

Seth Brundle

tedstriker wrote: »

It's the guards, what else would you expect. If you could quantify the sitting around drinking tea and eating hob nobs in monetary amounts then you'd find that 1000 for 3 bulbs is cheap.

cheap uninformed comment!

tedstriker wrote: »

I'm not trying to say that some guards don't do great work but in fairness 75 metres from Pearse street garda station you can see anywhere up to 30 heroin addicts dealing, drinking, taking drugs, and generally being a social nuisance. Every day. All day long. I've seen the cops walk past them many times and saying nothing.

What should they do with them? Where will we put them?
If they spent the day cleaning up their doorstep, then would you be complaining about the lack of gardai to do 'real' work?

oscarBravo

Unless this ventures somewhere near the actual topic, it's getting locked.

Firetrap

Yes, this is shocking. I get the impression that when an organisation realises they're dealing with the OPW, they think of a number and quadruple it. Just think of all the sites lying idle because of decentralisation. The roads/schools/infrastructure that cost a king's ransom to buy. I'd love to know what's going on? Does the OPW not have people working within its ranks who has experience of getting things like this done?

lmimmfn

im sure a mate of a mate of a mate of a politician made loads of $$$ out of it though

thebman

snyper wrote: »

The examples ive heard on the radio really make my blood boil, is there nobody in the opw with any sort of sence to know that they're being ripped off?

When it isn't your money and you can't get fired then where is the incentive?

AckwelFoley

According to a news report, the Gardai wond disclose where the station was that costed 1k for 3 bulbs. To be fair the OPW have rebutted the other claims saying that there was more involved in the contracts than was just stated, having said that i have no faith in government controlled contracts.. not this government any government

Niall Keane

The GCCC contrats were invented to end variations. Infrastructural projects came in regularly at 200% + of the tendered cost. Buildings 105% on average.
To explain:

Old method:

contractor A wants to tender for a raod from Dublin to Galway, under EU Tender regulations only the lowest tender can be examined, so if contractor A is in with a chance of doing some business he tenders low, with provisos that there is no granite to be blown out of the way just perfect conditions all the way, anything else will cause a delay that the government will have to pay for.
Tender price €1m, Turns out 10% of the job needed blasting so Final account = €1.5m

New Method:
same road, Contractor A wants the job, but like everyone else he won't gamble on a clear run. So he guesstimates that 25% is granite and tenders for €2.5m. It turns out that he wins his competition were calculating on 30% granite.
Tender price = €2.5 Final Account = €2.5m
That's what he gets, even though there was only 10% granite.

The minister is a hero, the job didn't run over budget.
The contractor is a richer hero carrying out the contract on time.
The tax payer loses, but is confused by the political spin.

On Buildings yes you get to save the 5% on paper but the cost has increased due to the increased level of complexity in preparing tender documentation, and also as contingencies are gone, everything else goes up like your showers.

But the building comes in on budget.