17 April 2024
The Greens have called on the State Government to abandon its reliance on external consultants or contractors last financial year as annual reports tabled in Parliament reveal that $1.169bn was spent on outside help in the last financial year.
“Companies like PwC, Deloitte, and KPMG are raking in millions of dollars doing work that can and should be done by the public sector. They rip skilled workers and experts away from the public service and then charge inflated fees to undertake work that could be done more efficiently and at lower cost by the State Government itself,” said Greens SA Treasury Spokesperson Robert Simms MLC.
Spending on external consultants and services has ballooned by nearly 50% over the last three years to dozens of companies, many of whom are not based in SA.
“Rather than shelling out millions to outsource work to contractors, the Malinauskas Government should be looking at ways that it can rebuild the capability and reliability of the public service.”