As the Northland by-election campaign heats up, the government has announced it will replace ten single lane bridges on Northland’s Twin Coast Highway over the next six years.
Roading has been singled out as one of the issues in the campaign, and National’s transport spokeperson, Simon Bridges, said the bridge replacement programme will cost between $32 million and $69 million.
A sudden enthusiasm for local infrastructure projects on the eve of a tight by-election. What a remarkable coincidence!
I wonder whether the cost/benefit ratios on these bridges are up to scratch? Last year they sure weren’t, with National bribing people in the general election using really poorly justified roading projects:
If we saw this anywhere else, we would call this wasteful pork-barreling what it is. Corruption. Our regions deserve to have their roading projects considered on merit, regardless of who their MP is. They should not have to watch on as lower quality projects jump to the head of the queue just because some areas have a senior Minister as their local MP.
I’m all for fixing the roads in Northland, so long as the spending is shown to be effective. Let’s see whether National are allocating the money properly. To the OIA…
lprent: And does anyone care to guess if the “Taxpayers Union”, a poorly disguised National front will find this to be wasteful?
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress