White Elephant Bridge (to be known as Abraham Street Bridge)

Were ratepayers aware that Council have just awarded a tender for almost $8.2M + GST to build another bridge over the southern transport corridor within a few hundred metres of an existing bridge (top end of Highbury Street by John Willcock College)?  The new bridge achieves nothing more than is already being achieved by the Highbury Street bridge/

4 serious issues

1.      The bridge is not needed and in fact serves no useful purpose.

2.      Council continually tell us they’re strapped for funds to bring our assets up to an acceptable level of repair and yet they can spend $8.171M plus GST on an unnecessary bridge when the original tender was for $8.2M inclusive of GST.

3.      There was a much cheaper tender ($835,000) from a fully qualified bridge building company whose tender included a large local component and yet Council went with a much more expensive Perth based option at ratepayers expense.    Why do we put up with this incompetence?

4.      Council delegated the CEO to complete negotiations with a tenderer Georgiou Pty Ltd last October 2014 at $8.2M including GST.  After 7 months the CEO awarded the contract to Georgiou at $8.171M plus GST – or in other words $817,000 more than the tendered price.

Ratepayers it’s your money that’s being squandered by incompetent tendering procedures and staff spending other peoples money (OPM).  Are you happy to be paying $9M approximately for a bridge that serves no useful purpose while Council chop funds from small community service groups and sporting bodies that are the life blood and fabric of this City?

Max Correy – Concerned Ratepayer