The former boss of the NSW government’s school building unit had a contractor “chase” his friend to apply for an internal pre-qualification scheme which allowed him to bid for a tender that eventually netted his firm about $1 million.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption on Friday saw text exchanges between former School Infrastructure NSW chief executive Anthony Manning and his friend Martin Berry showing the two were in contact in the lead-up to his registration for a pre-tender scheme within the agency.
Witness Martin Berry arrives back at the Independent Commission Against Corruption after the Friday lunch break.Credit: Sam Mooy
The texts show that in December 2017 Manning told Berry that a department contractor, Lily Wong, had been “chasing you for me” but was “not aware of our connection”.
The exchange related to a pre-qualification scheme that Berry’s company, Heathwest, was required to join to bid for a contract to provide assurance services to the school building agency.
ICAC has previously heard that Manning and Berry had known each other since 2006, when they had worked together in the Sydney office of consulting firm Turner & Townsend.
The two men became friends and regularly socialised together, including dinners and social catch-ups on Sydney’s northern beaches. In his previous appearance before the inquiry, counsel assisting Jamie Darams, SC, took Berry through a long history of text messages with Manning dating back to 2015 and early 2016 in which they discussed social catch-ups and cricket alongside work.
In October 2017, within about six weeks of Manning starting work as the chief executive of School Infrastructure, the two men talked about engaging Heathwest to provide investor assurance services, the inquiry heard in its opening week.
At the time, Heathwest was not prequalified under a whole-of-government scheme called the Performance and Management Services Scheme, and the ICAC has heard another School Infrastructure contractor, Lily Wong, had sent emails to Berry prompting him to join it.
Wong previously responded “I assume so” when asked whether she had been emailing Berry at the request of Manning. She told the inquiry she was not aware the two men were friends.
However, the messages also show Berry was confused by Wong’s requests. He told the ICAC on Friday that he had previously corresponded with her about applying for a prequalification scheme in her role at a separate agency, Infrastructure NSW, and the messages seem to show he initially believed that was why she had approached him.
Berry had asked Manning to be a referee for his application to the prequalification panel, and the messages show him chasing the latter to sign the reference so he could bid for a “tender from INSW”.
When Manning said he thought Wong had been “chasing you for me”, Berry responded: “all makes sense now”.
The ICAC has heard that in total between 2018 and 2022 Berry and his firm, Heathwest, were engaged nine times by School Infrastructure and paid more than $3 million.
After Manning and Berry spoke about investor assurance services in October 2017, the latter sent through a document that later formed the basis of the tender for which he was being prompted to join the prequalification scheme.
Berry’s firm won the tender, which was originally worth about $87,000. It ended up costing almost $500,000 and was extended for another 12 months for another $500,000.
But he told the ICAC on Friday that while he believed the agency would eventually need similar services he did not know the same information would end up in the tender.
He said he was “surprised” by the similarities when he was first shown them by ICAC investigators.
“Without sounding too arrogant, I would be seen as one of the most knowledgeable people around investor assurance in NSW,” he said.
“I would say this is quite generic published material. When I looked at the tender it’s kind of what I expected a tender for investor assurance would look like.”
During his previous evidence to the inquiry, text messages between the two men also revealed Manning was responsible for introducing Berry to Sam Sangster, the former chief executive of Health Infrastructure, where Manning worked at the time. Berry was subsequently employed on a contract doing “complex and significant” work on the Royal North Shore Hospital.
Manning organised Berry’s buck’s party and attended his wedding, and they were both members of the “Tom, Dick and Harry Breakfast Club” along with various other consultants who were also contracted to do work for the school building agency.
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