SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro said Thursday she couldn't get a straight answer from Premier Floyd Roland on why cabinet moved ahead with building the Deh Cho Bridge in February 2008 even though it did not have an approved bridge design.

In the legislative assembly yesterday, Bisaro asked Roland why cabinet gave approval for construction, even though the Department of Transportation expressed concern that the design was not complete, something the auditor general of Canada found to be a risky move in her report released Tuesday.

In response, Roland said, "Let's be clear on this, cabinet did not overrule Transportation. The fact is that this project was under the Department of Transportation and it is the initiative of the department and minister to bring forward papers for discussions on that process."

When given the opportunity to ask a supplementary question, Bisaro said she didn't hear an answer to her first query.

"If a department brings forward a proposal, there must have been some basis on which a decision is made to go on one side or the other," she said.

Auditor general Sheila Fraser found "the risk to the project was significantly increased when the GNWT waived the approval of the design in order to allow construction to start, despite concerns that the bridge design had not been fully developed and checked."

The GNWT assumed responsibility for all bridge debt in March last year when the lenders backing the project threatened to pull funding over a flawed bridge design. This was compounded by Atcon, a New Brunswick-based construction company, being pulled from the project in December 2009 by the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, which in February 2010 was removed as the project management team.

Jivko Jivkov, the engineer-of-record at the time the bridge design approval was waived, confirmed it was the current government that agreed to waive the approval in order to move the project forward.

"It somehow was decided they were going to award the contract without a design review," he said. He added that although he wasn't involved in the contract side of the project, he knew the bridge was approved to proceed, but he did not know why.

Earl Blacklock, spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, also confirmed the current cabinet, led by Premier Floyd Roland, made the final decision to move ahead.

"There is a briefing prepared for cabinet; they review it, they consider it, they approve it," he said, adding he didn't know how cabinet came to its final decision.

An amendment to the concession agreement to build the Deh Cho Bridge was signed in February 2008 by then-minister of Transportation Norman Yakeleya, which moved the project closer to construction.

A technical briefing held Thursday morning in Yellowknife on the current status of the bridge project revealed the November deadline for the beleaguered project's completion is being reviewed.

Due to delays in delivery of steel from Quebec, placement of the south trusses of the bridge is expected to begin in March, and the completion is looking more like June, said Kevin McLeod, director of highways and marine for the Department of Transportation. The original schedule was to have the south trusses up by the end of April. A revised work schedule for the next eight months of work was submitted by Ruskin Construction, the contractor on the project, to the government. McLeod said the department is currently reviewing it.

"We'll get a much clearer definition on the last eight months of work certainly by the middle or end of March as the contractor works his way through these issues," McLeod said, adding people who have renovation delays in construction work at home can relate to their plight. "The November date's not completely out the window, but it is something that the contractor has to clearly articulate how they're going to take care of that delay."

It's unknown if delays would increase the cost of the project.

- with files from Nicole Veerman

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