Even more uniform tweaking for police

new-zealand-national-party

Thu Jun 21 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Even more uniform tweaking for police

Thursday, 21 June 2007, 3:26 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Chester Borrows MP
National Party Police Spokesman

21 June 2007

“Another chapter’s been added to the book on the bumbling roll-out of stab-resistant vests to our frontline police,” says National Party Police spokesman Chester Borrows.

“First came the 18-month delay in rolling out the vests to frontline officers, because they were the wrong colour, the wrong material, the wrong design, and then the wrong sizes.

“Then came the call for 35,000 new breathable police shirts because the current ones get too hot under the vests.

“Now the Minister has confirmed in Parliament that police will also need new duty jackets, because the old ones don’t fit over the vests.

“Police management have admitted they had ‘no idea’ how many millions over budget the stab-resistant vest project will run.

“Yet it has already cost $1.3 million to replace the 1,200 vests sitting in the shed because they’re too small, and now there are thousands of new shirts and jackets on top of that.

“Once again, why didn’t these problems become apparent when the vests were first trialled?

“The latest problem also puts pressure on the Minister’s claim that vests will be rolled out to 98% of officers by the end of July.

“Police management have also confirmed they were aiming for ‘parallel’ distribution of the new vests, shirts and jackets. Embarrassingly, the new shirts aren’t due until March 2008, and the new duty jackets are still at the concept design stage.

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“Last year police paid Macpac $10,111 for a concept design for a new duty jacket. Six months later police have yet to produce a report on it.

“In light of the additional costs and delays involved, it’s hard to understand why no one in management, or the contractor responsible for procuring uniforms and equipment, has been sanctioned for this mess.”

Mr Borrows says the Deputy Commissioner’s admission that this project ‘has not been well managed’ is something of an understatement.

“What started as a laudable attempt to provide frontline officers with more protection has transformed into an inadvertent makeover of almost the entire uniform.”

ENDS

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