Page 486 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 1991
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PUBLIC ACCOUNTS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Proposed Reference
MR MOORE (11.35): I move:
That the following matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to inquire and report on -
(1) the practice in the ACT Government of over-estimating when preparing estimates for the budget;
(2) to quantify the amount set aside in the budget as estimates and the money spent both program by program and across the ACT budget;
(3) to assess how the surplus which has been generated is spent;
(4) to make recommendations on how future surplus between estimates and expenditure should be handled; and
(5) any related matters which the Committee deems appropriate.
In the Estimates Committee last year we were told, after some digging, that one of the projects that would be handled under the capital works program for the Department of Education was the re-roofing of the Aranda Primary School and that the cost would be $650,375. At the time it seemed to me that that was a very large sum of money for that job. Having had some experience as an owner/builder in re-roofing my own house, I did a quick calculation on the size of my house and the size of the Aranda Primary School. I thought, "That does seem a lot; perhaps they are going to re-roof it in bronze or something and have a good reason". I thought it was something I should check.
I then drove past the Aranda Primary School and noticed that paint was peeling quite excessively from the roof. If it was going to cost $650,000, one could not help wondering what would be the chances of repainting that roof. Further investigation on my part revealed that the Department decided it wanted to re-roof Aranda Primary School not because of peeling paint but because underneath the paint there was a great deal of rust and in fact the roof had lasted the minimal amount of time the company suggested a roof should last because of the presence of an oil-burning furnace. The oil-burning furnace puts out sulphur, which becomes sulphuric acid. It eats the roof and the roof tends to go rusty, apparently. Therefore the life of the roof is the minimum - roughly 25 years rather than 50 years. I decided that that was the end of that; obviously quite appropriate action was being taken to replace the roof.
It was not until just after Christmas, in early January, that I decided to investigate a little further, on getting some advice on what it should cost. When I pursued the matter I found that the tender for the roof had been let to Hawker Roofing for $146,530 and that the $503,835
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