The Department of Infrastructure has been accredited as a Mercedes Benz service agent.

Nick Black was appearing in front of the public accounts committee, chaired by Speaker Juan Watterson when he announced the agreement.

The DoI’s chief executive was asked by Mr Watterson about the government’s ’brand masochism’ with Mercedes which led to the island’s fleet of silver buses.

He said that the government tends to buy Mercedes single deckers and Wrights double deckers because simply sticking with buying the cheapest available buses can lead to extra costs by needing to have more spare parts and training for staff.

Mr Black added: ’Although its not widely trumpeted, because we don’t, the department has now sought and gained accreditation as a Mercedes Benz dealer. So we’re a service agent for Mercedes Benz bus and coach.

’That means when we had visitors coming in coaches, as you know we did, historically we have done increasingly, a range of our hotels benefit from the coach and tour groups. Had someone come across in a Mercedes Tourismo coach, we could have done the servicing and repair work on that vehicle.’

The agreement means the DoI gets a ’huge discount’ on parts, its staff receive training from Mercedes and it has a Mercedes diagnostics computer.

Mr Black was questioned on the decision by Bus Vannin to trial bike racks on the front of buses and told the committee he personally had sat in the driver’s seat when two bikes were put in a rack and said he didn’t want to drive that bus.

He said that the bikes were in his eye line and he would not have felt comfortable driving the buses around the island with the bikes on it.

Mr Black was also forced to defend the procurement process which can see overseas firms awarded contracts over Manx businesses who bid for the same tenders. He explained that some off-island companies ’work’ the system to show how their bids would benefit the local economy.

He said: ’Typically, the off-island firms score higher than the local firms in local economic value. My experience is that the off-island firms see that section and work, they see that and think how am I going to get points here?

’So, they put down we’re going to have a hotel for 10 nights for my visiting supervisor, I’m going to shop and buy all my stationary locally and they work it.

’And who can knock them for it? They absolutely say here is where my work will contribute to your local economy. Some of the local firms, I think perhaps mistakenly think well I’m local so I’ll get that point, but they don’t say well I’ve got 30 people on the pay roll who are all paying tax.’

Mr Black said that those considering tenders can’t make ’assumptions’ about any bids and ’we can only assess what we have in front of us’.