Re: Westrail Sale to ARG

[mauried@tpg.com.au (Maurie Daly)]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000 00:51:44 GMT, dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David
Bromage) wrote:

>Maurie Daly (mauried@tpg.com.au) wrote:
>> A few interesting excerpts from RD re the sale to ARG.
>> It seems that the highest bid was actually made by the FA Consortium
>> but rejected in favor of the ARG bid which was some $18 M less.
>
>Remind me again who ARG is.

Its a consortium known as the Australian Railroad Group who are
Wesfarmers WA & Genessee & Wyoming (The owner of ASR)
>
>> I wonder how the WA Govt can justify not taking the highest bid and is
>> there any scope for the WA opposition or the WA Auditor to intervene.
>
>The highest bid may not necessarily be the best for the state. It would
>depend on what the bidder planned to do once they own the asset. A lower
>sale price may be offset by a plan for higher investment (local spending)
>after the sale, e.g. buying new rollingstock from Goninan Bassendean.
>
>Cheers
>David

The problem I have with this is that the tender process needs to fair
and open and all bidders should be given info on what basis the
successful bidder will be chosen.
ie was it part of the tender that the successful bidder would be
required to buy new rollingstock from Goninan .
If not , they can promise what they like ,and once the bidder is
chosen can renege on any promises unless they are contractually bound.
Otherwise ,you end up with the scenerio that the successful bidder can
be chosen on the basis that it promises to make large contributions to
the Liberal parties future election funding.

MD