NDP chip-sealing project a failure: Tories
Posted Oct 28, 2011 05:50:13 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Nova Scotia’s Progressive Conservative party is attacking the provincial government over its chip-sealing paving program, calling it a failure.
Tory leader Jamie Baillie said the Dexter government has wasted taxpayers’ money by starting a program which didn’t even come close to meeting its target for the initial season.
“If you add up the single chip-seal and the double chip-seal work, they planned to do 366 kilometers but they only did 36 – a tenth of their target,” said Baillie.
He said not only did it take away work from the private sector, it also proved to be a huge waste of money – because most of the work didn’t get done.
This was the province’s first year chip-sealing, the type of paving done on light traffic roads.
The Department of Transportation, Infrastructure and Renewal is putting the blame for the project’s shortcomings on a late start to the construction season.
“Yes, we had a few problems getting started, hiring staff and so on. But we’ve done some good projects and we’re going to continue to do projects,” said Minister Bill Estabrooks.
He points to hiring and training staff, purchasing new equipment.
As well, the minister said a rain-heavy summer delayed projects.
A department spokesperson said the chip-sealing program is saving money because the work is being done for almost half the cost of last year’s projects.
“My department and the engineers advise me we should be looking at chip-sealing in a big way, and get involved, and we did,” said Estabrooks. “Subsequent to that we save the taxpayers of this province a million dollars this summer.”
Baillie said the numbers are skewed.
“They deliberately inflated the cost that they believed industry would do it at,” he said. “They projected it at $91,000 a kilometer. The actual is $39,600.”
Estabrooks is promising crews will get out on the roads earlier in the coming year.
