The Executive Director of the Heavy Civil Association is responding to concerns by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about cost overruns for paving contracts.

The federation is frustrated with the provincial government after access to information requests yielded little information on the causes and frequency of such contracts going over budget.

Jim Organ says just about all paving contracts from the Department of Transportation go out as “unit price contracts,” which essentially means that the contractor is paid for the amount of work they do.

He says it is not so much about contracts going over budget, but rather about estimates being off or unexpected things happening.