Penn warns of wasteful spending in 100m infrastructure push

Opposition Leader Marlon Penn has warned that the government's 100 million dollar infrastructure programme risks becoming an expensive cycle of repairs if water and electricity systems are not overhauled alongside road construction.

Speaking on NDP Radio on Wednesday, Penn said the government lacks proper coordination when building roads and upgrading utilities. He cited work in the Hodge's Creek area, where contractors finished retaining walls and other improvements while leaving existing water lines untouched. Workers later had to dig into the completed road to fix a broken water pipe.

"How often can you do that?" Penn asked, suggesting that this pattern would eventually force the government to excavate newly poured concrete at great additional cost.

Penn called for a unified development strategy that treats road work, water distribution and electricity infrastructure as interconnected parts of a single programme. He said that when roads are built, the government should simultaneously replace deteriorating water pipes and lay underground ducts for power lines.

His concerns also extended to how the government manages water infrastructure across the territory, pointing to the persistent difficulties residents encounter in obtaining steady supply. Penn stressed that public assets must be properly maintained after construction and that major spending should deliver real value.

The Opposition legislator said the NDP had spent recent months working with professionals to develop more systematic solutions to infrastructure challenges. He emphasised that taxpayers deserve measurable benefits from large public investments and that the assets created through such spending must be preserved. "So we have to make sure that when we're spending that type of money, that we see the return one to the taxpayers, and that we maintain the asset that is derived from spending that type of money," Penn stated.