£30m on Consultants for A5!
27 September 2011
TUV Leader Jim Allister has expressed amazement that £38m has already been spent, mostly on consultants, on the A5 project.
Mr Allister had tabled this Question to DRD:
To ask the Minister for Regional Development how much has been spent to date on consultants for the A5 project.
This is the answer received:
My Department, Roads Service has advised that at the end of August 2011, approximately £38 million has been spent on development of the A5 project. This total includes £29.8 million on the cost of professional services provided by project consultants and £2.8 million on the cost of contractors’ design advice.
Commenting Jim Allister said, "For such an ill-conceived project to have already swallowed up £38m of taxpayers' money is scandalous. Think how much road maintenance and how many essential modest schemes this could have funded, but instead it was wasted on a grandoise scheme which is first and foremost a political project, rather than a roads project.
"This is a scheme which never went through the normal assessment processes, but instead was leapfrogged to the top of the queue. Now, it seems it is already a bottomless pit for the squander of public money. It is time the minister called a halt on expenditure till a reasoned decision is made on the future of the project."
