KPMG Australia going cap in hand for $100m in loans
Article excerpt
Highlighted: the sentence this signal was extracted from
Federal and state governments have also frozen KPMG out of fresh contracts, but that barrier has proven porous. An analysis of federal contract data by online news site Politico on Monday found that the government had registered $38.5 million in work for KPMG while the ban, which began on June 13, was in effect. The Department of Defence accounted for almost $30 million of that sum, showing how deeply embedded KPMG has become in the public service despite Labor's vows to reduce the federal government's reliance on consultants. A spokeswoman for the Department of Finance, which sets the terms for public service contracting but does not approve individual deals, said the pause did not stop existing contracts, or extensions to them. "It also allows proposals KPMG submitted before 16 June to be finalised," she said. "The value of the contracts recorded does not, by itself, show that KPMG has bid for new work during the pause. Finance is not aware of any breach of the agreement."