Public Works Minister Ro Filipe Tuisawau reaffirms that they want to ensure that the re-establishment of the Public Works Department advances in a responsible and effective manner.

Ro Filipe highlighted this in parliament yesterday when questioned by Opposition MP Jone Usamate on the progress of the re-establishment of PWD and its achievement so far.

“Honorable Usamate is saying when when but we don’t want to repeat the same mistake by bringing the wholesome PWD back to replace and remove everything which is there. We need to have the right balance. I need to move forward in a responsible way in terms of taxpayer fund so we need to have a right balance to complement rather than duplicate.”

Ro Filipe highlights the concerns over the quality of work conducted by private contractors.

“For example in CWM a lot of repairs there done by private carpenters were not up to standard because the monitoring was not done by the relevant section of PWD which used to do it and that is something that we need to have there.”

The Minister stresses that they want to ensure that public work is executed to the highest standards of quality and accountability.

The PWD was abolished in 2008 and the coalition government allocated $5 million for its re-establishment last year with major focus placed on road infrastructure.