Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce has given an assurance the Government encourages all its agencies to follow the rules when awarding building contracts.
Steven Joyce's assurance comes in the wake of concerns expressed about the steel-making contracts awarded for a number of government contracts including the contract for the Acute Services Building in Christchurch.
The contract to supply the steel for the single largest project in the Christchurch rebuild has gone entirely to Thai Herrick, a US-owned steel fabricator in Thailand.
That is on top of Thai Herrick also winning the two other biggest steel contracts in this country for some time - the SkyCity Convention Centre and Auckland's Downtown Precinct. Thai Herrick is in a joint venture on those with a junior New Zealand partner Culham Engineering.
Mr Joyce said he did not have ministerial responsibility for the hospital project but the Government did have set of principles when it came to awarding contracts.
"We will be encouraging a DHB to do exactly what we encourage, which is to focus on the whole of life cost of their building projects and to achieve the appropriate quality for the whole of life at the best possible price and that's what we do across all government procurement," he said.
Mr Joyce said an "open approach" had to be taken to tendering but he was "completely unaware" of the contracting relationships for the hospital build.
He negotiated the convention centre deal that gave SkyCity greatly increased gambling concessions; SkyCity then chose Fletcher Construction as the main contractor, and it chose Thai Herrick-Culham's steel bid.
Source: RadioNz