An embarrassing campaign flutter

From Brendan McDonald.

THE Think Twice, Buy Local slogan got off to an embarrassing start when the (imported) banners were torn to shreds on a windy Victoria Avenue recently.

One would be tempted to say ‘serves them right’ for not looking in the Yellow Pages for another local firm to complete the order.

The message that was meant to encourage shoppers to buy local was well intentioned, albeit targeting local produce.

But it seems that our government departments have chosen to ignore the slogan altogether with the latest announcement that Transport and Technical Services have chosen to engage a UK firm of consultants to conduct a survey of the bus service and passenger needs.

It is obvious that these experts won’t come cheaply, but it’s the fact that local consultancy firms have been ignored and that another large sum of money is lost to the economy.

We have lots of consultancy firms in the Yellow Pages, all fully qualified and with local knowledge, so why do our government departments have to go elsewhere to hire experts and how much is this exercise going to cost?

In these desperate times, I would have thought our Treasury Minister, Senator Ozouf, would be sending out a clear message to his ministers to hire locally-based firms and protect local jobs.