Call for review of irrigation costs

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 12

Call for review of irrigation costs

PA Wellington Including a power scheme in the Maniototo irrigation scheme had caused many of its difficulties, Labour members of Parliament said recently.

Members of Labour’s caucus committee, who had just spent two days in Central Otago, said they believed there should be a comprehensive review of irrigation schemes’ costings.

“In the case of the Maniototo it is our belief that asking the irrigators to forgo their originally agreed scheme and to incorporate a power scheme for which the irrigators are being asked to meet one third of the cost of the headworks has seriously affected the viability of irrigation and their water charges,” they said.

The members of Parliament — Messrs M. Colman, W. P. Jeffries, and S. J. Rodger — said they believed there should be a reapportionment of costs between the Otago Power Board and the Maniototo Irrigation Committee “that would more fairly reflect the costs and benefits.” The inclusion of the power scheme had significantly changed the headworks on the project and the escalating costs were to be found largely in that area.

“Not to complete the irrigation scheme as originally contracted for between the Maniototo Irrigation Committee and the Government would be very short-sighted and wasteful of expenditure and headworks already in place,” they said.

The Commissioner of Works, Mr R. G. Norman, said the final estimated cost of $44 million for the Maniototo irrigation scheme was a little more than double the original estimate in real terms. The Values Party coleader, Ms Janet Roborgh, said the hysteria over cost escalations for the South Island irrigation projects could only be a ruse by the Government to divert attention away from its gross mismanagement for almost all the “think big” energy projects. She asked if Cabinet Ministers, by attacking public servants, were seeking to focus attention on the overruns in the hope of obscuring the real picture about present costs of the main projects.