Construction tenders delayed this summer, says Heavy Civil Association
Newfoundland and Labrador's Heavy Civil Association says government has released fewer tenders than usual this year, but the minister of transportation says the province is right on track.
Jim Organ, the executive director of the Heavy Civil Association, said that the tenders have been coming out late this summer.
The association is still expecting up to $30-million worth of road work tenders, which Organ said should have been released months ago.
"When the tenders come out this late in the year, it's really, really tough on contractors," he said.
"When the tenders don't come out until June, July, you've gone through two or three months earlier in the year not knowing if you're going to have work, not knowing whether you should spend money on that new piece of equipment, not knowing if you should keep your crew on."
Organ said he'd like to see tenders for summer work start coming out in November or December of the previous year, to allow companies adequate planning time.
He said he expects that several construction projects won't be completed this summer, and will have to be held over.
Minister says tenders 'on par' with last year
However, David Brazil, the minister of transportation and works, said that not much has been different this year. He said 15 to 20 per cent of road work has not yet gone to tender.
"We're down maybe a couple of tenders, when you look at the number of tenders. But f you look at the value of the tenders, we're totally on par," he said.
"And before we're completed over the next few weeks, we'll actually be ahead of last year's amounts of money that we've put out to the market."
Brazil also said the province has been able to get a better pricing on tenders this year, meaning more work will actually get done.
"From an economy of scale, we'll actually do more road work this year than we have in previous years" he said.
"Our numbers, from a financial point of view is on par, and actually ahead of last year and the previous year."
Brazil also said he's in the process of putting together a five-year roads development plan.
