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Let me give a slightly more informed insight.
As a worker for state own company.
Nobody in the ranks with responsability actually wants to shoulder it. This leads to very long, dry and hard to read reports to be writen. Of these, only the summary will ever be read, if so, ever.
The argument for outsourcing is that such companies provide specialized services, difficult to maintain in house or unjustifiable regarding equipment and machinery purchases.
This is all smoke and mirrors. Having capable personnel with more resources is a bonus, not a hindrance, ever. Besides it is cheaper. But such personnel requires field supervision and supervisors willing to take responsability for delays, damage, errors, etc. And nobody wants that.
Which opens the field for such outsourcers, often created by former employees of these state organizations. Contracts can be written with ironclad clauses that almost, but not quite, exempt contractors of responsabilities, leaving the state - all of us! - to take the brunt.
This isn't criminal. Just demonstrates how lazyness works.
I understand all that, I just fundamentally disagree with it.
To be clear, I am not saying you're wrong but I mean that this is just such irresponsible governing. It's laziness indeed, it's fear to take responsibility, it's whatever else. What it isn't is taking charge as leaders and feeling any kind of responsibility or accountability. This is something that could be done at a 10th of that amount if not less so.
I've worked a lot with governments myself in the past and the incredible wasteful spending just has me livid. From renting out entire castles to hold meetings to cleaning up walls, while also hollowing out just about all social services.
It's just - it wasn't always like this and I understand the politics behind but I will never understand it from a human point of view. It's utter insanity and almost no one is willing to change it.
My biggest concern with your entire reply lies on a single word: leaders.
The obcession with leaders is the result of our current collective downfall. We need everyone to realize they have agency. That they can interfere with what they consider or understand as wrong.
They are supposed to, in a democracy. Demand responsability. Ask for better.
Asking "why" is not a poor question.
We have agency when we unite and the good thing is that people all over the world are quite done with most of our ... leaders. The difficulty is that we're not united in which way to go.
I think that's our biggest challenge right now, and all forces are coming out to prevent people being organised and standing together. If we can fix that, and some good stuff is happening, the future is ours. My worry is if we can get there soon enough, and whether or not we can minimise the harm in the meantime.