NT Govt travel reform could ruin local business

Northern Territory agents are unimpressed after the NT Government moves to use interstate travel companies to book all government trips.

According to the ABC, Chief Minister Adam Giles said the new policy would prevent fraudulence of its bookings, as well as delivering “greater value for money and greater accountability.”

The change comes after a string of allegations that there has been inappropriate use and rorting of travel paid for by the NT Government for ministers and advisers.

But travel agents such as Darwin-based agent Sandra Lew Fatt said it could very well result in many local agencies having to shut their doors.

Lew Fatt’s agency Travelworld has been well looked after by the government travel business, and private sales would not be able to sustain her business, according to the ABC.

“I think people are making these decisions that don’t really know what they’re doing and I’m very very angry about it,” Lew Fatt told the ABC.

NT Police are investigating an “anomaly” in travel booked by the Department of the Chief Minister with Latitude Travel, whose owner Xana Kamitsis will face trial later this year charged with defrauding a government-subsidised pensioner travel scheme, according to Nine News.

Although arrested in November, the department had still been dealing with her agency until last month.

Lew Fatt said agents were being punished “for the sins of others.”

But Giles has ignored these pleas, instead announcing that the plan is to exclusively use Qantas Business Travel and FCM Travel Solutions, a corporate subsidiary of Flight Centre Travel Group.

“From 1 July all travel will now go through corporate travel agents of which there are two that are contracted to the Territory Government,” Giles said.

Lew Fatt described the Giles Government change as “ludicrous”, as per the ABC, and called out the government on its promise to “support local business.”

“Nobody has supported local business in this town at the moment,” Lew Fatt said. “And then to go out and put out a statement like this, I mean it’s ludicrous.”

The Labor Opposition said if it won the next NT election it would move back to using Territory travel agents, writes ABC.

“I think it’s a tragedy that the victims of the CLP travel scandal are a Territory icon like Sandra Lew Fatt, Territory jobs and Territory businesses,” Opposition Leader Michael Gunner said.

Giles said local companies would be able to tender for a new government contract in January.

“I’d encourage Territory travel agents to get together to form a corporate partnership to see how they can tender for that process,” Giles said.

Giles said auditors KPMG would be engaged to “conduct the independent review into public sector travel processes and provide recommendations to Government by August, with six monthly audits to be established to ensure compliance with the new travel procedures,” according to the ABC.

But the review is set to only look at transactions made after June 2014, which Lew Fatt says will be useless unless it goes further back into the records, while Giles defended the timeframe, saying backtracking further would be “quite costly.”

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