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- 6 June 2007
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The BER stories keep coming. Amazing what the unique mix of bureacracy and wanton stimulus packages can achieve.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/t...kshelves-an-optional-extra-20100412-s485.html
To quote from The Age article:
'They consulted the NSW Department of Education's website and learnt that a library suitable for their school was estimated to cost $285,000. The rest of the money, the delighted school council figured, could be used to turn the old library into a computer laboratory, fix fire-safety concerns in the infants department and generally spruce up the school.
That's not how it turned out. The government bureaucrats in charge of the scheme ignored local builders and chose a building contractor in Wollongong, who subcontracted the job to another operator on the far-away NSW south coast.
''The building turned up prefabricated on the back of three trucks and was assembled in an afternoon,'' Ms Suthern said.
Then came the shock. The job had come in at $908,000.
Worse, the so-called library had no fire door, no shelves for books and instead of the expected double glazing to cope with freezing high plains winters, there were louvres, despite stamped plans to the contrary. The only heating was by unflued gas heaters, which meant the louvres had to be open when they were operating. There were no rainwater tanks, as ordered, and no solar panels on the roof. A pocket handkerchief of concrete out front was billed at $9000, an access track that already existed at $8000.'
Bonzer. The only certainty with the BER will be that Gillard will escape sanction despite being Education Minister and, no doubt, some faceless apparatchik will take the blame.
Tick tock...
http://www.theage.com.au/national/t...kshelves-an-optional-extra-20100412-s485.html
To quote from The Age article:
'They consulted the NSW Department of Education's website and learnt that a library suitable for their school was estimated to cost $285,000. The rest of the money, the delighted school council figured, could be used to turn the old library into a computer laboratory, fix fire-safety concerns in the infants department and generally spruce up the school.
That's not how it turned out. The government bureaucrats in charge of the scheme ignored local builders and chose a building contractor in Wollongong, who subcontracted the job to another operator on the far-away NSW south coast.
''The building turned up prefabricated on the back of three trucks and was assembled in an afternoon,'' Ms Suthern said.
Then came the shock. The job had come in at $908,000.
Worse, the so-called library had no fire door, no shelves for books and instead of the expected double glazing to cope with freezing high plains winters, there were louvres, despite stamped plans to the contrary. The only heating was by unflued gas heaters, which meant the louvres had to be open when they were operating. There were no rainwater tanks, as ordered, and no solar panels on the roof. A pocket handkerchief of concrete out front was billed at $9000, an access track that already existed at $8000.'
Bonzer. The only certainty with the BER will be that Gillard will escape sanction despite being Education Minister and, no doubt, some faceless apparatchik will take the blame.
Tick tock...