Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Council will continue to 'buy local'

Updated at 11:01 am on 23 August 2012

Christchurch City Council will continue to give preference to local businesses when it purchases goods and services after a change was made to its new procurement policy on Wednesday.

The amount the council spends climbed to $800 million this financial year, double what it was the year before.

Council staff were recommending the dropping of the 20-year-old "buy local" policy in favour of one where firms offering the best value for money were instead chosen.

But one of the sub-committee members, Councillor Jamie Gough, said the council had a responsibility to support local businessess.

"It's no different than you or I. You know, you go out and you buy a product and you might see something, some soap or something that's been tested on animals and it was a dollar.

"And there is one that wasn't and it's for a dollar and ten cents. So you need to make a judgement call: is that difference in price, does that value outweigh that price differential?"

The Audit and Risk Management sub-committee made an amendment to the policy so that Christchurch businesses would still be chosen first, as long as the extra cost of doing so was small.

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