By Lucy Carroll
The former head of the NSW Education Department’s school building unit hired a strategic adviser on a pay rate of $1920 a day without any contract or formal agreement in place, the anti-corruption watchdog has heard.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption is holding a public inquiry into the conduct of Anthony Manning, who led the department’s school infrastructure unit from 2017 until last year.
The inquiry, now in its fourth week, has heard that, under Manning, spending on contractors at the agency surged to more than $344 million, and that 26 employees were on salaries upwards of $500,000.
Lily Wong, who appeared at the ICAC on Monday, was hired by former School’s Infrastructure chief executive Anthony Manning to manage procurement at the agency.
The ICAC is probing allegations Manning and others in the school building arm subverted recruitment processes, gave long-time friends lucrative contractor jobs, misallocated funds and improperly awarded contracts.
On Monday, the inquiry heard evidence from Lily Wong, who was hired as a contractor by Manning in 2017 as a procurement adviser for the school building unit. She was contracting for Infrastructure NSW as a procurement director when she was engaged by Manning. She had previously worked for Transport for NSW.
Wong said she met Manning at a cafe on October 26, 2017, and she started at School Infrastructure five days later on a three-day-a-week contract.
She told the inquiry she had not known Manning before starting at the building unit and that her manager at Infrastructure NSW, David Riches, had put her name forward. During her evidence, Wong said she assumed she would be in the role “for at least six months”.
Counsel assisting Jamie Darams questioned Wong about the rate she proposed charging.
“There was no negotiation about the rate was there? You just simply put forward the rate that you wanted and that was accepted?,” Darams asked. Wong agreed, and said she had discussed the rate with Manning at the cafe meeting.
The rate proposed by Wong was $240 an hour, or $1920 a day based on an eight-hour day. She sent a proposal to Manning stating the scope of her services would be “the provision of advisory services in assisting School Infrastructure with the management of procurement services and delivery”.
In December 2017, Wong emailed Manning proposing to change her title from procurement adviser to “strategic adviser” to “better reflect” her role.
She said she could not recall why she suggested the name change, and that Manning had not provided “a great level of detail explained to me [about the services] initially”.
Former NSW Schools Infrastructure chief Anthony Manning is the subject of the ICAC’s latest inquiry.Credit: Janie Barrett
The inquiry heard this month that Mattu Barr, a group director at School Infrastructure, was concerned with the recruitment of Wong, whom she thought was on a contract valued at more than $50,000, an arrangement that had not been approved by the chief financial officer, as required by NSW Treasury.
“Mr Manning said to me that he didn’t need to obtain CFO approval. And I said to him ‘well, actually, under the Treasury guidelines, you do’, ” Barr said.
Wong said, to the best of her memory, she had instigated her own contract with the building unit after she started and filled in information in the contract document, which included a 12-month engagement for three to five days a week.
“The most likely explanation is that you didn’t have a contract in place when you started, and you decided that you should have one in place,” said Darams.
On Monday afternoon, Darams outlined the engagement of Heathwest, a consultancy group providing “investor assurance services”, with School Infrastructure.
The sole director of Heathwest is Martin Berry. The inquiry has previously heard details of how Manning and Berry had socialised together and were members of the “Tom, Dick and Harry breakfast club”, an apparent reference to the film The Great Escape. Manning went to Berry’s buck’s party and his wedding.
Wong said that before she started at School Infrastructure, she had not worked with Berry and had never met him in person. She said she might have been aware of his name as they had both worked at Transport for NSW, she said.
Wong told the inquiry she did not know that Manning and Berry were friends.
The inquiry has previously heard evidence that between 2018 and 2022, Heathwest had nine engagements with School Infrastructure NSW for which Berry and Heathwest were paid more than $3 million.
In early October 2017, within about six weeks of his commencement, Manning and Berry met to discuss School Infrastructure engaging Heathwest to provide investor assurance services, the inquiry heard in its opening week.
Heathwest was not prequalified under a whole-of-government prequalification scheme called the Performance and Management Services Scheme.
“It was Lily Wong, a contractor engaged by Mr Manning in the area of procurement, who prompted Mr Berry to join the PMSS so she could ‘know the options for engaging [his] services for future work’.
“The evidence – or at least the inescapable inference – will be that this prompt came from Mr Manning.”
The inquiry has heard that Manning was not a member of the evaluation panel for the investor assurance services contract but that Manning and Berry had remained in contact, including socially, during the period when the request for quotations was open and during the evaluation process.
Darams asked Wong if she had Heathwest’s application “fast-tracked”. Yes, she replied. “Did you ask them to fast-track it because Mr Manning asked you to?,” said Darams. “I assume so,” said Wong.
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