FUJI-XEROX CONTRACT PROBE BEGINS

[Anonymous]

Contract probe begins
New
Zealand has begun making inquiries into a multimillion-dollar Defence
Force contract for photocopiers and could decide as early as this week
whether to launch a full investigation.An anonymous whistleblower
alleged earlier this month that the Defence Force breached guidelines
issued by government security agency GCSB by awarding a contract for
copying equipment to Fuji Xerox and that it had given the company
preferential treatment.The whistleblower, who claimed to work for
another government department, said copiers tendered to the Defence
Force by Ricoh, Konica Minolta and Sharp had higher security ratings
than the products tendered by Xerox.GCSB guidelines say agencies should
give preference to ICT equipment with a higher evaluation assurance
level (EAL) rating and must do so if they are used to output secure or
classified information.”NZDF blatantly ignored GCSB policy, thus
placing the information they retain in jeopardy, and are also spending
more taxpayer dollars by doing so,” the whistleblower said.Audit New
Zealand sector manager Gareth Ellis says the agency has been reviewing
documentation of the tender.”At the moment we are making preliminary
inquiries to determine whether or not we will go on to do an
investigation.”We have got people with experience in procurement so we
will ask them to take a look and see if there are any areas we need to
do a bit of work.”There are no set criteria for deciding whether to
launch an investigation and the terms of reference would depend on the
nature of any concerns.”If there are any areas of concern in the
paperwork they would obviously be the focus of the inquiry,” Mr Ellis
says.Modern copiers double as printers and are usually attached to
computer networks.They include hard disk drives that can contain
thousands of pages of copied and printed material. The information on
these drives can be hacked into or stolen if not properly secured.Mr
Ellis says Audit New Zealand doesn’t know who the whistleblower is and
that it is unlikely to attempt to establish their identity. 

[Author]

August 21, 2006 at 1:14 PM