By Ann Marie Angebrandt
A $150 MILLION power station in Laverton North, which was due to start operating at the end of last year, is facing delays of up to a year because of construction and labour troubles.
Electrical Trades Union secretary Dean Mighell, who represents about 100 of the site’s 300 tradesmen, said the project is one of the worst managed he’s seen.
“They’ve had enormous problems since day one and contractors have considered walking off,” he said.
German engineering group Siemens is constructing the 320-megawatt gas power station for Snowy Hydro Ltd, a three-way partnership between the Victorian, New South Wales, and Commonwealth governments.
The Cherry Lane station will be a peak-load plant that can be rapidly activated to meet expected growth in summer electricity demand.
Mr Mighell said dozens of legal disputes were pending between Siemens and contractors for breech of contracts.
Many of those workers live in the West.
“They [Siemens] can’t schedule, they can’t plan, they’re simply incapable of running a job like this.”
Mr Mighell said the project would be millions over budget because of the delays.
“As a taxpayer, I want to know just who is going to pay for that blow-out,” he said.
But Siemens corporate communications manager Brad Voss said the delays were due mainly to the location of the site.
“Much of the work is done in cranes and it’s turned out to be a very windswept site,” he said.
“It’s really a combination of things out of our control that have snowballed.”
Mr Voss would not confirm a charge made by Mr Mighell that Siemens had developed a plan to sack the workers and replace them with non-union labour.
He said Siemens expected the plant to be operational by August, a time frame Mr Mighell said would be impossible.
Snowy Hydro Ltd spokesman Paul Johnson would not comment on whether its contract allowed it to claim compensation for delays.
