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The Ministry of Transport is happy with the work it is doing in monitoring the work of Waka Kotahi-NZTA
That’s despite the fact that the cost of just 17 highways has skyrocketed by $ 1.1 billion, equivalent to a quarter of the organization’s annual budget.
But Green Transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter believes the organization could do better to keep Waka Kotahi at bay, especially when it comes to those massive blowouts. He wants to make sure that the billions of dollars in road costs are not being paid for by cutting funding for walking and biking improvements.
The Ministry of Transport is the monitoring agency for Waka Kotahi. That means he is in charge of making sure Waka Kotahi does what was asked of him. One of the most important parts of this job is making sure Waka Kotahi spends the amount of money the Government tells it to spend in the exact areas the Government requests it to be spent.
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That’s easier said than done, and recent experience suggests that walking and biking projects are being divested at the expense of large highway projects.
The government uses a document called a Government Policy Statement, or GPS, to tell Waka Kotahi where to spend money collected from fuel taxes and road user charges in certain areas, such as state highway improvements. and cycling.
Genter, a former deputy transport minister, has been frustrated that Waka Kotahi has overspent on state highways, apparently at the cost of spending on things like bike lane improvements.
“I think the government would like to be able to more actively ensure that Waka Kotahi changes priorities and can comply with the policies set out in GPS instead of continually spending more on roads due to cost overruns,” Genter said.
The Government and the Ministry of Transport had to be able to ensure that cost overruns were paid by changing the priority of other projects, projects that were not from different parts of the GPS, such as walking and cycling.
“The government needs to say, ‘they[Waka Kotahi] It is necessary to change the priorities of other projects because more than $ 1.1 billion has been spent, ”Genter said.
Last week, Genter questioned the Executive Director of the Transport Ministry, Peter Mersi, in Parliament’s Infrastructure and Transport Committee, whether the Ministry was doing enough to make sure that Waka Kotahi did what the GPS asked.
“What capacity does the Government have or does it have to hold Waka Kotahi accountable for its decisions, when recent forecasts from them show that they will spend considerably more on the kind of state highway activity and considerably less, for example, on walking and riding a bicycle?” Genter asked.
Mersi said that Waka Kotahi would be held accountable for any decision made that deviated from what the government had asked for.
“The Waka Kotahi board has a role of legal independence and its role is to comply with the policy statement: the GPS.
David Unwin / Stuff
Green MP Julie Anne Genter wants the Transport Ministry to ensure that Waka Kotahi cost overruns are not financed by stealing funds from the bike lanes.
“Part of our role in monitoring GPS and its implementation and the performance of the board will be to watch how the board is executing in relation to strategy. Ultimately, to the extent that there are deviations from that, the board would have to engage with the Minister on why a set of deviant decisions was made and how that would change over time, ”Mersi said.
Outside the committee, Mersi said the $ 1.1 billion overshoot at Waka Kotahi did not cross a red line that would prompt the Ministry to step in with its monitoring function. Mersi said it was important for the board to have the freedom to manage its own finances, but said there were some limitations the board faced such as limitations on borrowing.
“The Waka Kotahi board has the flexibility to manage all the GPS over the years. It’s really important that they have that flexibility because these are big, bulky projects and the cash flow and timelines will vary, ”Mersi said.
Mersi said the ministry would be reviewing the cost drivers in transportation in hopes of better understanding some of the outbursts the government had experienced.
Meanwhile, Waka Kotahi has said that he could move money from one part of the transportation program to another, as long as everything balances out over a three-year period.
