No Treasury cost-benefit analysis of UFB - Joyce
The government agreed to pump $1.35 billion in the ultra-fast broadband (UFB) rollout despite receiving no cost-benefit analysis from Treasury.
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The Government agreed to pump $1.35 billion in the ultra-fast broadband (UFB) rollout despite receiving no cost-benefit analysis from Treasury, Communications Minister Steven Joyce said.
Mr Joyce last week announced Telecom had won the contract to build nearly three-quarters of the UFB, which the Government would spend $1.35 billion on over a number of years
The productivity boost from that investment would add 1.8 percent to GDP and create 70,000, the minister has said.
Mr Joyce yesterday said those figures came from a number of analyses by the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) and overseas, but none from Treasury.
"No, Treasury has not told us that, the analysis of that has been driven by MED and bringing together international stuff," he told TV3's The Nation.
Crown Fibre has had at least one outside analysis, from Don Bash's Taskforce 2025, which saw the project as uneconomic.
Asked what Treasury had said about the economic impact, Mr Joyce said they were cynical about a lot of things but "actually they're very happy with the outcome of this".
Mr Joyce said the extra jobs would come "right across the economy".
"We've taken an express decision to try and get out ahead of the pack and get ahead with competing countries and get this stuff done, and I think it will be absolutely transformational for this country."
Outgoing Treasury secretary John Whitehead said Treasury had not provided a cost-benefit analysis of the UFB, but had commented on the analyses that had been done.
"As time's gone on we got more positive about this because I think as we've got into the details I think there's a lot to be said for it," he told The Nation.
Asked if Treasury had been cynical about the analyses, Mr Whitehead said: "I think I'd use the word sceptical, it's Treasury's job to be sceptical."
Mr Whitehead would not say if he agreed with the Government's projections.
"We haven't actually done that work ourselves, but we recognise that the decision that they've taken is the best to meet the Government's objectives."
Asked if he was disappointed that Treasury had not been asked to do a cost-benefit analysis, he said: "Oh, that's life."
Mr Whitehead leaves his role as Treasury secretary this week to take on the job of executive director for the World Bank in Washington, DC.
NZPA and NBR staff
Mon, 30 May 2011
Mon, 30 May 2011
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No Treasury cost-benefit analysis of UFB - Joyce
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