By Lucy Carroll
An education official in the NSW government’s school building unit raised concerns with top executives about how a multimillion-dollar contract was awarded, warning “the whole process was wrong”, it has been alleged in an ICAC hearing.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption is holding a public inquiry into the conduct of Anthony Manning, who led School Infrastructure NSW from 2017 until last year.
The state’s corruption watchdog is probing claims Manning and others in the agency gave friends and associates high-paying contractor jobs, improperly awarded contracts and misallocated funds. It is also examining allegations that Manning engaged in “reprisal” sackings.
Nereda Daw, a former procurement officer at School Infrastructure NSW, gives evidence at the ICAC.
On Thursday, the inquiry heard evidence from Nereda Daw, a procurement officer for the school building unit in 2018 and 2019.
Daw told the inquiry she voiced concerns about the tender process for a “strategic communications lead” contract for the school building unit, which was ultimately awarded to Kathy Jones and Associates.
The inquiry has heard evidence about the relationship between Manning and Jones, and that the pair regularly caught up for lunches, coffees, dinners and walks.
KJA won the communications lead contract despite it not being first-ranked after the initial tender evaluation, ICAC has heard. The total amount paid to KJA and associated companies was $9 million over about four years.
Daw said she found out soon after she started in the role that the “sourcing of the tenders” was done through the emails of Lily Wong, a contractor hired by Manning. “There was no oversight – it was not a process that any procurement professional would do or be comfortable doing,” Daw said.
She said she raised concerns about the tender process with senior department executives Erik Maranik and Paul Hannan.
Counsel assisting Jamie Darams asked: “Do you remember what you said to Mr Hannan?”
Daw said: “That it was dodgy. That the whole process was wrong.”
Daw said she understood the correct process was to use an e-tender system, a standard government web-based tender system. Daw told the inquiry the response to her concerns was “like a brush-off”.
“As a government professional, you have to stick to the NSW government guidelines. And it’s damaging if you don’t. It exposes the agency to risk, it exposes you personally and everybody associated with it to risk. It’s not good practice.”
Daw told the inquiry that she recalled being asked to change the evaluation report to have KJA as first in the initial rank order of respondents.
“I wasn’t happy, but most people at School Infrastructure were contractors. I had no back-up income. It was just me,” Daw said.
Daw told the commission that procurement professionals had an “obligation to taxpayers to get value for money and to ensure correct process is followed.
Former School Infrastructure NSW chief executive Anthony Manning during a parliamentary inquiry in 2022.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“If we compromise our integrity, we should not be in these jobs. We take our roles very seriously. The reason [this tender] caused me disquiet was because I felt I had compromised myself as procurement professional.”
Later in the day, the inquiry heard from Hannan, a group director and chief procurement officer for the NSW Education Department.
Darams asked Hannan about concerns raised by Daw over the tender process. “If pressure has been brought to bear on an evaluation outcome, that is not right,” Hannan said.
Hannan was also asked if he considered Manning a friend. “I would like to think so,” Hannan replied. “I have caught up with him once since he left the department, for a beer.”
Hannan said Manning was under “a challenging situation in terms of the amount of work he had to achieve” while he headed up the schools building unit. He said his opinion of the job Manning had done at School Infrastructure had been “somewhat tarnished”.
Hannan told the inquiry he was friendly with human resources manager Wendy O’Brien, but that he had not seen her since she left the agency.
The ICAC is investigating whether O’Brien, who was paid up to $1425 a day, took reprisal action against certain staff following complaints about School Infrastructure.
The inquiry was shown a series of text messages and emails from the personal email accounts of O’Brien and Hannan in January and March 2024 regarding engagement of Stuart Suthern-Brunt.
Suthern-Brunt, a friend of Manning’s, was employed in a consultancy role and was paid $2800 a day, or the equivalent of $644,000 a year.
Hannan said it was “misguided” to provide documents about that engagement over his personal email account.
Paul Hannan gives evidence to the ICAC.
In a tense exchange towards the end of the day, Hannan was questioned about a September 2022 complaint by Justin Barrett, a contingent worker engaged as a senior project director, about bullying, harassment and misconduct by management at School Infrastructure.
The inquiry has previously heard Barrett’s wife, Bernadette Barrett, was the director of a creative agency named Kazbar Creative, which had performed extensive graphic design work for School Infrastructure and the education department since 2019.
The inquiry heard O’Brien had requested details about the work Kazbar had done for the agency.
Darams asked: “Did you understand that Ms O’Brien wanted the information so that Kazbar, from that point on, could be flagged by you in terms of any future procurements?
“What did you understand she was asking you to do?”
“For want of a better term, to blacklist them, that is my expectation of what she meant,” Hannan said.
Hannan later added while the company “may have received a million dollars’ worth of work in the preceding 12 months, there’s no commitment for us to continue spending any money with them at all”.
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