Victorian taxpayers will be forced to pay for yet another Labor transport infrastructure failure, a new report released today by the Victorian Auditor-General (VAGO) has confirmed.
The VAGO report “Eloque: the Joint Venture Between DoT and Xerox” confirms $20.4 million was wasted as a result of the Labor Government’s failed joint venture to establish a system to remotely monitor the condition of bridges in real time.
The report found:
• The decision to enter into a joint venture was based on inaccurate and incomplete advice which overstated the potential benefits of the proposal.
• The Victorian Government did not conduct appropriate due diligence before investing.
• The structure of the joint venture contributed to a lack of transparency relating to the governance and management responsibilities.
• The Victorian Government and its agencies failed to effectively oversee the joint venture.
Furthermore, VAGO was unable to identify key elements of the commercial arrangements of the joint venture, including how the Eloque intellectual property was valued, who made this valuation and how the contributions made by the government were agreed upon.
The cost of this failed transport project adds to the more than $30 billion in major project cost blowouts under the Labor Government.
Shadow Minister for Public Transport, Matthew Guy, said: “This report has demonstrated yet again, the Labor Government cannot get the basics right as the cost of yet another mismanaged project falls to hardworking Victorians.
“This is another in a long line of botched transport projects that are riddled with mismanagement, governance failures and conflicts of interest.
“Victorians deserve to know exactly what went wrong and why, and questions surrounding the valuation of this project and the contributions of government must be answered.”
