Shadow METRONET Minister, Tjorn Sibma, has criticised the Minister for Transport, Rita Saffioti for her continued inability to confirm that services on the $1.9 billion Forrestfield Airport Link (FAL) will start before 30 June, as promised.
“WA taxpayers are footing the bill for a project that is already running two years late and the Minister has today refused to confirm when services on the first major component of METRONET will begin,” Mr Sibma said.
“If any problems have been identified in the testing and commissioning phase that are likely to derail the project, then the Minister should come clean about what they are and explain how she proposes to resolve them,” said Mr Sibma.
In response to questions from the Opposition in Parliament today, the Minister for Transport failed to answer when testing of the line would be complete to enable the FAL to commence.
“I trust that if the Minister has received advice that the commencement date of the FAL will have to be pushed back beyond 30 June, that she will announce this fact as soon as possible.”
Mr Sibma said that he has grown concerned about the FAL commissioning date due to the reflexively secretive nature of the McGowan Government, and the fact that the overall METRONET project is running well behind schedule.
“After all this time and all the money, Western Australians want to see confirmation that the FAL sub-project is still on track in tomorrow’s state budget. I hope that there will be no further delays,” said Mr Sibma.
“We will all learn a lot more tomorrow about how well the multi-billion-dollar METRONET program is tracking.”
