The ACT Ombudsman has apologised to a Canberra company for the delay in investigating its complaint.
More than two years ago, Black Mountain Construction Assurance asked the Ombudsman to investigate why the ACT government had rejected the company's pitch for major jobs when it had tendered the lowest price.
Company director David Parums said that over five years his company, BMCA, had put in bids for ACT government work 18 times. But each time, it had learnt that it was the best bidder on objective criteria like price and quality - but had still failed to get the contract.
Mr Parums said that the taxpayer would have saved $800,000 if the ACT government had given it the contracts.
He wanted to know why his company hadn't been awarded the contracts despite being best value for the taxpayer, so in May 2024 he asked the ACT Ombudsman to find out.
He wondered if there was some sort of secret ACT government blacklist in operation.
The ACT Ombudsman has still not concluded his investigation but his spokesperson told The Canberra Times: "We have apologised to Mr Parums for the time taken to progress his complaint.
"We conduct our investigations in private, and we endeavour to finalise them as quickly as possible. We will continue to keep Mr Parums updated on the progress of the matter."
Mr Parums was very critical of what he saw as the opaque way big construction contracts were granted by the ACT government.
Last month, the ACT Integrity Commission found that some ACT employees had engaged in "serious corrupt conduct" by steering work to a company favoured by the construction workers' union. Two ACT government workers, Josh Ceramidas (who worked for the then deputy chief minister Yvette Berry) and the former head of the education department, Katy Haire, "dishonestly provided a back door by which the strategic interests of the CFMEU were given priority" in the way a contract was awarded for a primary school upgrade.
Mr Parums did not believe this motive or these people were behind the rejection of his company's repeated rejected tenders for work - but he wanted to know what was going on. He felt there was something untoward in the way the ACT government allocated contracts.
"We are a small local company. The ACT government says we are exactly the kind of company it wants to foster," Mr Parums said.
"BMCA meets all the requirements for the awarding of contracts but somehow it just doesn't happen, and we want to know why."
While apologising, the Ombudsman Iain Anderson did not give a reason for the delay.
He told The Canberra Times last month that his office was grappling with more than 7361 complaints as of July 17. Mr Anderson said 543 of those matters had "sat unresolved" for more than one year. He acknowledged that his office's performance in handling individual complaints was not meeting its own expectations.
Mr Anderson is both the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the ACT Ombudsman. He was dealing with Mr Parums' complaint with his ACT hat on. His brief was to make sure "ACT Government agencies make decisions that are transparent, lawful, fair and accountable".
In October, The Canberra Times asked the Ombudsman's office why there had been a delay in looking at Mr Parums' complaint. Within two days, the Ombudsman's office said the complaint would be given "priority".
