Plea to support local businesses
‘‘KEEP it local.’’
That is what Foleys general manager Bruce Muldrew has found himself saying a lot recently.
It is what he wants to start seeing put into practice if Dunedin and the rest of the country moves out of its Covid19 lockdown next week.
‘‘Work, where possible, is handed out to local companies . . . that ‘keeping it local’ theme,’’ he said.
He wrote to the Otago Southland Employers Association arguing giving contracts for projects — such as the many associated with the hospital rebuild — to local businesses made more sense.
‘‘From a couple [of] perspectives: it helps that whole keep it local, less people moving around [and] all the staff are . . . located in the local regions.
‘‘Secondly, just ensuring that we’re looking after local businesses, who employ local people on local projects.’’
The hospital rebuild was a massive project that would have a lot of projects related to it, Mr Muldrew said.
‘‘There’s a number of projects floating around that are aligned with the hospital rebuild.
‘‘Not quite sure where all of them are at, but we would just again ask that the . . . decisionmaking in the supply chain [has] that ‘keeping it local’ thinking when they make their decisions.’’
He said firms would be able to remain competitive and that ‘‘it’s not handout type thinking’’.
‘‘Particularly in the contracting market there’s been no geographical barriers per se.
‘‘We see from time to time companies coming from outside of the region who don’t have a base in the region sometimes landing work for various reasons, and that just . . . doesn’t particularly support keeping it local.’’
He was wary that under various Covid19 restrictions it was not clear how they would affect projects that needed to be done.
‘‘It would certainly have some constraints around that.’’
Foleys offers a range of contracting services from plumbing and gasfitting to drainlaying and electrical work.
It has offices throughout 10 South Island sites such as Dunedin, Balclutha, Christchurch and Timaru, as well as a Palmerston North operation.
Mr Muldrew said that at each site, he would prefer doing work needed locally.
‘‘We certainly support the view that where we have a branch locally we would prefer they would be doing local work as opposed to having to source work out of the region.’’
He supported ‘‘social procurement’’; prioritising contractors from where a project was being carried out — an idea he said the Government was discussing before Covid19 hit.
‘‘Having some of those social procurement aspects . . . having a weighting in the decision making of who gets the contract is important.
‘‘There’s been a lot of commentary in recent times about that social procurement practices on the back of failures of construction companies over recent times.’’
He said following the ‘‘keep it local’’ tagline meant more money would stay within that economy and strengthen it in uncertain times.