The NZ Transport Agency has today announced it will not be making significant changes to the compliance industry – specifically around conflict of interest.
The review had been triggered around concerns raised by an anonymous group of industry players concerned about the integration of importation and compliance into the Optimus Group structure
In a statement today, the agency says that after carefully considering feedback and submissions from industry and the public, it has decided to retain its existing conflicts of interest policy for vehicle entry certification, and strengthen its assurance and auditing programme.
General Manager for regulatory compliance, Kane Patena, says that the original proposal to change the policy generated a high level of engagement from industry, which was taken into account in the decision-making process.
“We were pleased to have such good engagement with industry on our proposal” Patena says. “The feedback helped us establish that it would be more efficient to introduce a wider range of improvement activities to protect the integrity of entry certification decisions – such as refining our guidance for managing conflicts of interest, stepping up our assurance programme, and providing more support to inspectors and entry certifiers.”
Under the previously proposed policy change, the Transport Agency would have no longer permitted an inspection organisation to carry out entry certification activities for a vehicle if that same inspection organisation (or a related party) had an ownership interest in the vehicle or had conducted border inspections for the vehicle.
However, consultation found that, while many submitters supported the aim of the changes, they would have had significant impact on the industry and have been difficult for the Transport Agency to regulate due to the nature of vehicle ownership within the supply chain.
“What this decision will mean for industry is that we’ll be committing to a more robust process for audits and reviews of vehicle inspection companies,” Patena says. “We’ll be engaging further with industry over the next few months to make sure we get all the detail right.”
Twenty submissions were received during the consultation period, which went from November 2018 to March 2019. More information about the original proposal, what we heard, and details of the decision are available here.
