Sharp appealed to the Ombudsman, who sided with the Ministry of Transport, which argued that releasing its estimated cost for the project would \u201chave the greatest potential to impact ongoing negotiations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, a $10m difference in availability payments equates to $250m over the life of the contract, which can be quite impactful,\u201d the ministry said. <\/p>\n
NZTA argued that releasing the BCR could \u201ccreate uncertainty amongst respondents if it brings into question the Government\u2019s decision to proceed to procurement, and as such could undermine the competition amongst bidders and\/or quality of bids\u201d.<\/p>\n
The agency also argued releasing the BCR would weaken the Crown\u2019s commercial value for money, as the private sector could see opportunities to increase their return at the expense of the Crown\u2019s value.<\/p>\n
Sharp said the fact the BCR was not released suggested it was relatively low, meaning the benefits did not stack up against the costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the project was good, they\u2019d be saying \u2018here\u2019s what the benefit-cost is \u2013 they\u2019d be waving it around and saying \u2018look how awesome this road is\u2019,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the Government was \u201ccommitted to being as transparent as possible within the bounds of the law and commercial confidentiality. <\/p>\n
\u201cTaxpayers also expect us to achieve good value for money, which can at times require confidential negotiations. I note the Ombudsman agrees, and I am comfortable with the approach taken,\u201d Bishop said. <\/p>\n
The Green Party\u2019s transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter, an opponent of the road, said the public deserved to see the cost of the road, and the benefits the Government believed it would provide. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister of Transport has said hard choices will have to be made about transport projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI urge him to be transparent about relative costs and benefits of all the RONS, and not to sign the country up to an unaffordable PPP, when there are better options for improving the resilience and transport options for Northland,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNational campaigned on this project assuming a much lower cost of the whole highway programme. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow the fossil fuel crisis means the cost of building it will be even higher, right at a time when we need alternatives to diesel and petrol to move people and goods,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The conflict takes place against the backdrop of growing concerns about the cost of large transport projects.<\/p>\n
The Infrastructure Commission\u2019s National Infrastructure Plan, which was welcomed by Bishop, was critical about the cost of large \u201cmegaprojects\u201d, defined as projects that cost $1 billion or more.<\/p>\n
It warned the dominance of megaprojects threatens to \u201ccrowd out other priorities like essential maintenance and renewals\u201d.<\/p>\n
A Ministry of Transport spokesman said: \u201cWe acknowledge the public interest in releasing the Benefit Cost Ratio, and the need for transparency around Government decision-making. <\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we reiterate the points made in the Ombudsman\u2019s response that releasing this information would prejudice commercial confidence while NZTA\u2019s Public Private Partnership procurement process is underway. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider that this information can be released following the completion of these commercial negotiations\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sharp appealed to the Ombudsman, who sided with the Ministry of Transport, which argued that releasing its estimated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,6726,1052,70218,51179,4187,802,1887,14739,266,26755,809,120,3025,111,43,139,1067,69,12792,6046,1136,1314,12975,26887,31706,61,8238,698,6923,1533,102,6490,24750],"class_list":["post-436720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-become","tag-benefits","tag-contractors","tag-contracts","tag-cost","tag-costs","tag-countrys","tag-expensive","tag-government","tag-highway","tag-keep","tag-likely","tag-most","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-ombudsman","tag-potential","tag-private","tag-road","tag-sector","tag-sides","tag-signed","tag-to","tag-under","tag-until","tag-what","tag-will","tag-with","tag-wraps","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}