Metres zero, consultants 41.5 million

The Herald reports:

More than two thirds of Auckland’s $58.9 million light rail spend has been on consultants, Newstalk ZB can reveal.

The Transport Minister’s office has defended the spend and a spokesman said projects of this scale required significant planning, investigation, and design before spades hit the ground.

But National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown said the project was going nowhere.

“Labour promised to build light rail from Auckland’s CBD to Mt Roskill by 2021, but all they have delivered is millions of dollars worth of reports.”

Brown accused the Government of being all talk and no action on its promises, while Aucklanders were stuck in congestion.

In the past five years the Government has spent $58.9 million on the Auckland light rail project and $41.5 million of that has been on consultants, as of early June.

If a consultant charges $1,000 a day then that is 41,500 days of consultants.